When The Chronicle Attacks: Target - The Peace Movement

I think last weekends demo in SF ws smaller than reported but the one a month ago was much larger than reported. The crowd this time seemed about half as large as last time and that was probably because last time many people came from out of town where there were no protests wheras this time there were protests as close as San Jose and Sacramento. The lines on East Bay BARTs were less than 1/3 as long this time and the crowd extended about half the length.

The amount of focus on the breakaway march this time was also weird. This time there were several small incidents with windows down town but I saw no reports of full windows actually broken. Last time the British consulate, the INS and a Strabucks were more significantly attacked. YET, this time the Chronicle makes a huge deal with front page coverage on sfgate, whereas last time there was no coverage.

The Chronicle seems to try so hard to spin news events that when facts emerge they have to run for cover. Of course they are only worried about rightwing complaints, so this time they will run front page stories about crowd sizes wheras last time there was not nearly the same coverage when estimates were changed.

If people make too big a complaint this time the result will be bad for the peace movement. People raise protests about the changed crowd estimates, the Chronicle brings in photo experts and its reveals that the estimates were smaller. Last time the march did have almost 200,000 and by saying the march this time was larger allows the new estimates to be used to attack both marchs.

You counted them? How?

yes, the overall march was smaller than than the previous one.

but the breakaway march was 3 times larger than the previous one.

"If people make too big a complaint this time the result will be bad for the peace movement."

Wrong. People have the right to complain whenever they see a wrong done to them.

Having this idiotic rag for a newspaper with virtually no other daily alternative (aside from indymedia) is reason enough to complain nonstop.

The Chron said "65,000 at Peak of ... Rally." The "rally" only consisted of those gathered in Civic Center to listen to the speakers and entertainers. It did not include the march. I was there; I saw both. The overall march was easily three times larger than the rally. Now, I'm not defending the Chron; what I'm attempting to show is a line of argument that can be made with it, as I have already done today, that is logical, can be corroborated, and points out how its choice of words results in negatively manipulating the public as to the veracity and power of the event. Yes, I too kneejerked when I saw the headline; but a violently negative response defeats the whole point of the march and rally, and the movement as a whole. We must Out-Think the warheads and their media allies now that they are really putting their collective feet in their mouths. This is such an opportunity; use it!

well, how come with the Giants games, everyone can easily get out within an hour, with lots of space between individuals, and all drive home. It doesn't take them 3 hours in closely packed formation to get out of there.

Anyway, I wish the Chronicle would point out some obvious economic fallout that is sure to occur from the war.

When covering HIV in India, SE Asia, Africa and Russia, briefly the question will come up whether USA and Europe should fund generic drugs to save people from this humanitarian crisis, but then it's quickly rejected because it would cost a lot. Well, do you know how many AIDS patients you could fund with this war that expected to cost $300billion, not including maintaining occupation there? In the polls given by the media, they always ask if people are in favor of the war if it remained an air war, vs. if a certain number of casualties might be involved. They never ask if they want to have a substantially worse standard of living in the US, which is what americans really don't want.
I wish we could look into the future like in the film "it's a wonderful life" and have people really consider whether the obligatory economic trauma here is worth it. We're not going to be able to fund so many things domestically with all the debt, and schools and everything else will suffer. If you go talk to someone who has dependents who has been out of work already over 6 months with this recession, despite years of experience, they would not say it is worth it to go w/o work for another year, even if bin Laden and Hussein are from the same general arab ethnic group. Not any more than we could afford drugs to solve HIV in Africa. Has anyone else noticed that Ethiopia is suffering a famine ?

If one looks at the full page pic in the chroniclie you can see that the shadows on the
right side of the pic (ferry building) are very long yet the shadows around the unbeliveably
empty civic center area are very short.. there seems to be a transition in the middle of
un plaza where things seem to have a long shadow and then suddenly short. now, I was there at CC
pretty much all day including 1-2pm the photo in the chronicbull supposedly was taken.
the pic in the pap shows the plaza on the north side of the library where the memorial statue is as nearly empty where I remember
it being so packed with people that I couldnt even get through. likewise mcallester and larken were so full of
humanity that I thought if a stampede somehow started folks would be getting trampled.
I couldnt even get on mcallister north of larkin there were just to many!! I have pics where i hung my camera over my head around the chain link fence to prove it. Go to the web site of Air Flight services <http://www.airphoto.com> and you will see this juicy tidbit of info
"We not only provide airborne platforms for small, private company R&D projects, but also provide air support on a continuing basis
directly to NASA, and various government contractors such as LOCKHEED-MARTIN, HONEYWELL, GENERAL DYNAMICS, BECHTEL
and others." Holey Smokes!!! a corporate photographer for bechtel & lockheed say the turnout of the largest
antiwarmachine protest in SF history was 25% of what even the cops say it was and the hearst
propaganda mouthpiece puts it on the front page a week later with seemingly fake photos none the less!!!. I'm SHOCKED just SHOCKED!!!
I wonder, were these the guys that were trailing the "french want the oil" banner from behind their plane????? does anyone have pix with a timestamp on them???
see ya at the next one...........

.... see that the shadows on the right side of the pic (ferry building) are very long yet the shadows around the unbeliveably empty civic center area are very short.. there seems to be a transition in the middle of un plaza where things seem to have a long shadow and then suddenly short....
---------------
and I swear I heard a few gunshots coming from the grassy knoll

Of course the shadows are going to different because the buildings around the Civic Center are on a North-South-East-West grid but the Ferry Building and the buildings along Market St. are on a grid that is 45 degrees to that; i.e. Northwest-Southwest-Northeast-Southeast.

One wonders exactly what sort of agency the Chronicle hired to do its crowd analysis. Does anybody know who they are? Are they black ops? Did the Chron. actually pay for their services or were they offered? Just wondering.

christus,

Channel 7 just had an update, showing scenes from the courtroom today. Most interesting was that they showed a computer screen and described how they were looking at http://www.indybay.org website, and they showed some specific comments to newswire stories, and read the text. One of the two comments they read was the one that 'jbusch' or someone wrote saying that protesters are spoiled brats (How old do you have to be to graduate from a brat to something else?), and the second one was a person saying "we decided to do a march on our terms". Let me see if channel 5 says anything. They were still struggling with the black bloc definition.

Black Bloc brings on the heat and then screams if they get burned. Black Bloc stop screwing up the peace message with your own violent agenda. Peaceful protest not mindless acts of violence.

Remain calm, the article is an interesting exercise using some fancy toys with a questionable conclusion.

Following is an email I sent to the chronicle probably won't be printed so here it is:

---------------------------------------
Regarding your article on estimating crowd size based on aerial photographs http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/02/21/MN240732.DTL. As I have had some experience using aerial photographs in an academic research setting I was very interested and have three general comments on the process and conclusions.

First since the chronicle seems to be attempting to use a scientific technique to base a conclusion on they should follow through seeking peer review of the technique and conclusions before presenting there findings as fact.

Second stating that chronicle staff replicated the technique and kind of came up with the same count so they are going with the original count is basically pointless as the Chronicle Staff are not trained, would not recognize errors in technique or Photo aquisition and I would venture are under some pressure to agree with the original findings (loss of job or demotion may possibly play a part).

Third in a employer/employee relationship such as the one between the hired Air survey Company and the Chronicle there is allways some pressure to skew the results to fit the employeers wants/needs. This is meant as no disrespect to the Air Survey Company, but merely states the situation between an employee and an employer.

I would think the next step is to document the process, publish it for peer review after which a conclusion may be reached with some confidence. Untill then it is only an interesting exercise using some fancy toys with a questionable conclusion.

Sincerely
Oswald Teppiccs
------------------------------------------

I doubt very much if the Chronicle will submit the work to critical review as they are happy with the results. I am sure we can find some "expert wittnesses" of our own, say at UC Berkeley!

And so we prove we are smarter then them and we win in the end! OT

Anybody there who was gifted with far-sightedness could see with their own eyes the Jan and Feb marches were 200K strong. Both times, I let the march pass me at 2nd for about an hour after the start passed around noon. Packed. Then I marched. Solid people the entire time, both times. In Jan, when I got to 7th around 2:30-3, I got up on something to look over the crowd and there was still a solid mass as far as the eye could see toward the Embarc. Civic Center Plaza was certainly also full by that time. F16 was every bit as packed as Jan. In fact, the CC rally was more crowded than in Jan. Overall, I think F16 was bigger.

Go to Pac Bell Park. There's room for, what, 60K? There's no way that crowd was 65K! It's just impossible and I am amazed the Chron could equate the numbers in these HISTORIC events with those of a Dodger game. I was there and I saw it.

Where is the market for professional crowd-counters? Where do you think? LAW ENFORCEMENT. Surveilance - it's a growing industry.

I wonder if the pros have any estimates that can be corroborated with auditable crowd count data, such as the Bridge Concert or some other ticketed outdoor event. Just wondering. The shadow thing is curious. I noticed it myself. In the pic of the civic center, the shadows seem to get longer as the eye pans east.

I conveyed my anger in an email to wayne. he wrote back:
"Mark --
After the Jan. 18 rally, many peace advocates demanded we do an independent
count. Obviously numbers are important or I wouldn't have received scores of
e-mail before I even arrived this morning.
Wyatt Buchanan"

OK, who demanded that?
I responded again that the numbers aren't nearly as interesting as the apparent dishonesty behind them. Oswald is right, without a true peer review, there is not due diligence.

m4Rk

Than J18, but not 100,000 smaller! Just slightly.

The difference about this march was that it was all LOCALS!! Every single person I know went to that, except one who had a work emergency. All of my friends who have NEVER gone to any other march - ever in their entire life - went to this. My one friend, originally from Taiwan, was very nervous, worried he wouldn't know what 'march etiquette' to use!

So no matter what the Chron says, we were all there, and we know. Plus, yes, the breakaway is getting bigger, isn't it.

But anyway, I'll write another letter to the Chron about the fact that they report the Chinatown Parade as being 400,000 in number. That would mean that event is 8X the size of this event. You can't have it both ways.

Anyone who has attended the last two or three marches knows that February 16 was the by far the biggest. The almost two hours it took to get from the foot of Market to the Civic Center was stop-start-stop-start the whole way. If that many people showed up to watch the Chinese New Year parade, it would have to be cancelled!

The Chron has no credibility, period. After the last round of layoffs and the Willie Brown horse-trading scandal, I'm always amazed to see someone surrender four bits to the vending rack.

I prefer to bask in the knowledge that millions marched worldwide, making history. Maybe this war is preventable after all.

It was clear to me that Feb. 16 was smaller than the January march, still very big, but definitely smaller. The Chronicle played down the January march and diminished its numbers. The way it quickly reported 200,000 for the Feb. march was as if it was making up for the misreporting of the Jan. march. The SF Chronicle even seemed to endorse the Feb. march, which gives it more seeming credibility when it now says it was only 65,000 (which I think is a big underestimate).

I'm guessing that there is at least some degree of struggle within the Chron over these matters. It would be interesting to know the "positions" of the big players. It appears, if there has been a struggle at all, that the scummy liberals have beaten the less scummy liberals for editorial control (they're all "good liberals"). Just the day before this faux-amazing investigative report on last week-end's protest numbers, the Chron had a prominent, above-the-fold, front page article reporting that the global protests have emboldened Hussein--PRECISELY the message Bush has been demanding be transmitted far and wide.

On a marketing level, the Chron is well-served to take the "liberal" line on the war--it's the Bay Area and the new trendy and sophisticated Chron doesn't want to be behind its customers. There's nothing lost by being "liberal" on this matter: they placate and gain credibility among the comfortable garden-variety left-liberals, don't scare the comfortable garden-variety right-liberals, and trigger denunciations from the talk-radio geniuses: All three groups are happy. And so is the Chron.

It needs to be kept in mind that the default "liberal" position on this war--amped up UN inspections, which, given the balance of power, automatically necessitates and therefore justifies a massive US build-up, regardless of what groups like Global Exchange say--is simply the good cop to Bush's bad cop, when boiled down to policy. It seems like the Chron now wants to reign in the "loyal opposition".

Good thing a lot of us aren't loyal to this scheme....

Why was the SF protest smaller? My two cents:

--there were many other demos around the state, which wasn't the case in January.
--there was a massive storm the night before, which probably caused some people to change plans and deterred some who were coming from further away.
--many people had gone to a march several weeks previously and figured it would be big even if they didn't go.
--some are already getting tired of strolls down Market street.

... said it was slightly bigger than last time J18.
What can you expect from the Chronicle? It's a really mixed bag. The editor is definately "conflicted".
One day it tries to project a very progressive, liberal image, and the next, it's belittling the peace movement by splitting hairs about count and making a huge big deal about it. Really annoying.

I want to allow peer review of crowd estimates via overhead photos.

Photos, especially if on film, can be enlarged. So enlarged street and plaza sections of the overhead photos for Jan 18 and Feb 16 could be posted at SF IMC.

Then we wouldn't have to depend on SF Chronicle crowd estimates.

Chronicle did not include a single decent photo online from their latest estimate of 65,000. So their numbers are probably bogus. I'd like to prove it.

I also need to know when the end of the marches arrived at Civic Center. For both the Jan 18 and Feb 16 marches.

Also need exact times for all overhead photos.

Could someone forward this message to those who can answer these questions?

From reading I get the impression that the Jan 18 crowd size was larger. Is this true? I was not at either rally so I can't judge for myself.

65,000 ,265,000 or 6,500 does not really matter. What matters is that the people who do show up stay committed. Quit complaining over the science of crowd estimates or the message will be lost.

It's not surprising they didn't put their fake study pictures on the online version - they looked really cheap and like it *did* make the paper look like a tabloid.

In response to this idiotic article, the Chronicle printed their own idiotic right wing letters praising the article. I suspect it was misrepresentative of the number of calls and emails they recieved.

What matters is that our masters don't give a rat's patootie about peaceful protests, no matter how big they are. Bush said so himself.

So what are we going to have to do instead?

Discussion here:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1575289.php

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1575280.php

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1575682.php

These comments are a great example of the uselessness of trying to listen to the anti-everything people.

These comments are a great example of the uselessness of trying to listen to the anti-everything people.

These comments are a great example of the uselessness of trying to listen to the anti-everything people.

These comments are a great example of the uselessness of trying to listen to the anti-everything people.

These comments are a great example of the uselessness of trying to listen to the anti-everything people.

They talk, and they talk, and they say nothing. You have a moral responsibility to use your brain better.

The methodology that the Chronicle used is grossly inaccurate! The demonstration is OVERWHELMINGLY a fluid event, with people arriving and leaving at all sorts of different times -- with some participating in the march AND the rally, while others participate in only one or the other.

To calculate an estimate of a fundamentally fluid event from a STATIC photograph is either the height of ignorance, or an intentional ploy to reverse the rapidly buiding momentum against the war!

Yes, it's true that in the third paragraph of the article there is a brief acknowledgement of their methodological flaw, but the rest of the article is so overwhelmingly focused on explaining and defending their "innovative technique" that they have no problem completely missing the forest for the trees -- they totally fail to account for the dynamic nature of the event, and therefore the article must be classified much more as propaganda than as a "scientific study", which it obviously attempts to convey.

It is not at all unreasonable to calculate that many tens of thousands of people who were on the march (or who went directly to the rally) then went (off-site) to grab something to eat, or to do other things, with many of course still intending to return to the rally.

If there actually were 65,000 people in the general rally area at 1:45 p.m., as the article claims, then it is certainly not beyond belief to estimate that 35,000 who had already partcipated in some way had already "left", as described above. That brings the tally to 100,000 -- and if we allow for a 20% undercount in their basic technique, that brings the tally to 120,000.

Then there are all of the many thousands who just happened to have arrived after 1:45 p.m., including perhaps a third of the march which had yet to arrive in the rally area. A third of 120,000 is 40,000, and if we add another 30,000 who skipped the march and went directly to the rally after 1:45 p.m., than we are now at 190,000!

Another way to look at this is to use concept of "turn-over". For example, a restaurant may have room for just 100 diners, but they are able to serve 300 people every evening. How do they do it? Because each table "turns over" an average of three times an evening! (Some dine at 5:15 p.m., others at 6:30 p.m., and still others at 7:45 p.m., etc.).

So if the main rally area also was able to "turn over" three times during the day (with some people there at 12:45 p.m., others there at 1:45 p.m., and still others at 2:45 p.m.), then you can multiply the Chronicle's estimate of 65,000 times 3 and arrive at 195,000 as a more accurate figure! (And that doesn't even take into account those who participated in the march, but "dropped out" without ever reaching the rally!).

Don't believe the Chronicle's "pseudo-science" propaganda piece -- at least 150,000 people participated in the demonstration, and probably closer to the organizer's final estimate of 200,000!

A few observations;

1) i arrived early at the march, around 9:30 am.

2) i stayed at Herman Justin until about 1:15 - 1:30 then started marching right after the 3rd crowd "yeah" wave reached Justin Herman Plaza from i guess the front of the march. Can anybody provide a time reference for me?

3) It took nearly 2 3/4 hours to reach the Civic Center Plaza. i should know, i looked at my watch.

4) i was, according to the Chronicle graphics, near the end of the march. This is utter nonsense, because;

5) i looked behind myself about 3:00 p.m. and i actually saw a sea of marchers behind me, reaching as far as the eye could see, which was several blocks.

6) i don't believe that the crowd peak was before the publically and often stated 1:45 - 2:00 pm timeline. And finally;

7) As anybody who actually was at the F16 march can tell you, there was alot of major overflow into the side streets and onto the sidewalks. Even the police say that figure is enormously low.

8) Even if the lowball 65,000 is taken at face value, that is still 65,000 anti-war activists dedicated to stopping this war, versus the American War machine, which is being run by a handful of former oil company executives. Oh, let's not forget that the Chronicle, and the independent contractor hired to do the aerial survey, Air Flight Services, are on the other side of the political and economic fence.

Power to the People

I don't think the absolute numbers matter as much as the relative numbers for San Francisco.

As in how does the size of this march-rally compare to others in the last 40 years in the Bay Area.

If San Francisco Chronicle would actually put up all the photos and grid maps and times they used in their calculations, then they would actually be doing a service.

If they do not, then they are just doing more of the same corporate media disinfo.

I get the impression that the Chronicle missed lots of people who took several paths from Market Street to Civic Center Plaza.

Also lots of people overflowing into side streets.

And the density counts depend a lot on how big the grids were, and how people on the edges of grids were counted.

Even if the absolute numbers end up being 100,000 or less, my impression from reading is that the last 2 rallies may have been the biggest ever political rallies in the Bay Area.

Is the Chronicle discussing this very relevant fact? If not, then this is a sure sign of more disinfo.

The bottom line is that the biggest worldwide rallies in history just occured, and democracy is being ignored by Big Oil Corporate Rulers in many nations.

Bush Big-Oil corporate rule = New World Order. Hemp biomass conversion to fuel! SpinWaves.com free energy! MMM. 200 cities worldwide May 3 2003.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction

America the Conqueror! 2 million drug-war prison slave laborers! USA installed oppressors in Iran (1953), Iraq (1963), Israeli-occupied Palestine, etc.

US terrorism, death squads, drug war:
http://corporatism.tripod.com/squads.htm

Regardless of the size, these facts remain:

1) a small minority of Americans participated
2) polls show a majority of Americans do not agree with the protestors
3) the war will begin within a month, regardless

Finally, when the war is over and y'all move on to the next "America is the Great Satan" tirade, the protests of Gulf War 2 will all be forgotten history.

>polls show a majority of Americans do not agree with the protestors

That's an argumentum ad populum, as is, "A majority of Germans agreed with Hitler," or, as my grandma used to put it, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?"

"If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?"
---------------------
That's not the point. My point is that yours is a minority view, expressed by a minority fringe. In the end, it's irrelevant to the formulation of US foreign policy. Just like the protests of Gulf War 1 (I imagine you are too young to remember those).

Not a debate. Just stating a fact.

>My point is that yours is a minority view, expressed by a minority fringe. In the end,

(1.) That's today. Just wait.

(2.) So what? The American revolution, for example, was never at any time supported by more than a third of the colonists.

>it's irrelevant to the formulation of US foreign policy.

So is the majority opinion. our rulers do what they please. None of our opinions matter. Only the bottom line matters. to them. To them, we're nothing but livestock.

>I imagine you are too young to remember those

You have a vivid imagination. Fact is, I'm old enough to remember the Levitation of the Pentagon. Are you?

Fact is, I'm old enough to remember the Levitation of the Pentagon. Are you?
------------

Good to see you have a sense of humor :-)

President Bush’s Ratings Fall Sharply. Poll taken before and during
protests worldwide. "results of The Harris Poll®, a nationwide telephone
survey conducted by Harris Interactive® among a sample of 1,010 adults,
from February 12 to 16, 2003." Ratings will fall farther when a poll is
taken AFTER the worldwide protests.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=358

*Bypassing the corporate-media hate and disinfo matrix:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction 
1000's have read the public message archive.
Cannabis, drug reform, and issues outside the drug war.
MMM Million Marijuana March. 200 cities worldwide.

a small minority of Americans participated HUH? And a small minority of English subjects participated in the American Revolution. You are by all appearances dense beyond belief. polls show a majority of Americans do not agree with the protestors B F D !! Cough up those numbers if you can. Polls are a vital part of the Corporate America Dinsinformation Machine. They come out of the same bag as those faked Chronicle photos of the march anyway. And i don't care what anybody else thinks anyway. It's called common-sense - in case you were wondering. the war will begin within a month, regardless And there is no reason for the needless killing of severely oppressed civilians in a foreign land living in a Totalitarian state. And it's not a war, it's America threatening the peace and security of the entire world with their pre-eminent Military strength and economic bullying. Scare tactics. Power to the People

as dense a right-winger as they come. Better still - SFPD brass!!

Don't waste more than a line on him.

The Chron printed a long letter to ed today attacking - through jokes - the criticisms of the their faux study. They're really going overboard with this and I hope it blows up in their face. It's not worth reposting it here, too idiotic. I refuse to post any stories from that piece of trash ever again. Even the Tribune has risen above them.

Well, I've noticed that the Bay to Breakers race always gets coverage with numbers like 100,000 people in the streets, and the race is sponsored by the newspaper, although maybe it was the Examiner, but then only 18,000 or less actually go through the finish gates. And when they start, they just take up 4-5 blocks

I agree, we need to demand a similar examination of the Bay to Breakers event. To hell with the Chronicle, their covering up for the corrupt SFPD scandal shows that they dont report news, they broadcast propaganda. NO ONE BELIEVES THE CHRONICLE ANYMORE!

Picture if half the people in our march had been forced into pens and then beaten and told to go home, never able to reach the Civic Center.

Then, a few weeks later, the St. Patricks Day parade happens . .. the story on Bloomberg walking in the Queens St Pat. Parade was fairly big because it was an 'all inclusive' parade (gays too).

But picture having been beaten or left on a bus for 5 hours with no heat, and then to see the Patti's Day thing unscathed.

I'd be ready to smash that city.

As it is, in SF, now its the media vs. the people. I noticed the TV news showed all interviews where people were mad at cops, but Chron showed an equal number of both - they must've had to dig through rich areas to find people who'd say we should support these crooks. TV news doesn't have time to poke around the nooks and crannies of the city for someone to feed them a line. But watch, in a few days they will.

Overhead photos for Feb 16 2003 march, followed by maps, and links to Jan 18 2003 overhead photos, crowd size comments, etc..
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1575313_comment.php

San Francisco Chronicle article and detailed discussion and debate about calculating crowd sizes.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/02/1576903_comment.php

President Bush’s Ratings Fall Sharply. Poll taken before and during
protests worldwide. "results of The Harris Poll®, a nationwide telephone
survey conducted by Harris Interactive® among a sample of 1,010 adults,
from February 12 to 16, 2003." Ratings will fall farther when a poll is
taken AFTER the worldwide protests.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=358

Another discussion and debate about crowd sizes, San Francisco Chronicle articles, etc.. History of overhead photos.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1578993_comment.php