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I was at the Pro Wisconsin Union rally in Sacramento on Saturday. I couldn’t believe the story in the Sacramento Bee this morning. The Bee emphasized the five minutes of contention between the Anti-union people and the Pro-union people. There was no reporting of the call from the podium for calm and restraint and the fact that the Pro-union people listened. It was the Anti-union (Tea Party) that instigated the problems during the day. The capital police had to constantly maintain order in the Tea Party ranks.
The crowd count was way off, too. I did not see 150 Tea Partiers. I saw about forty or fifty.
I took photos but didn’t get any panoramic views of the two crowds. Here is a map I created showing the Tea Party group in red and the pro-union people in blue. Since I was in the crowd of union supporters (Go Wisconsin!) my shots of the Tea Party are not as robust.
Below you will find the photographs I took of the two groups. The ones outlined in red are the Tea Party. The ones outlined in blue are the union supporters. The images give an idea of the density of the two crowds. (after the jump)
Next time I will make sure to get panoramic photos of the crowds. And I will find out how to get the most accurate crowd count.
29 Comments
Recc’d, thank you, Mary.
Doesn’t look like very many teabaggers to me. Glad you were there.
Way to go and thanks for the headline! Reporters who mis-inform need to be called out.
As noted in my comments on Mary’s previous post on the rally, I also thought the Bee‘s estimate of 400 protesters was wildly low. My wife took more photos from the sidelines throughout the event; she and I will be examining them further shortly.
Mary’s previous post on the rally:
http://my.firedoglake.com/marymccurnin/2011/02/26/ca-unions-others-demonstrate-in-support-of-wi-protestors-capital/
It looks like the SacBee is just another member of the Mainstream Propaganda Machine.
The SacBee is a conservative media outlet; the numbers in their article are absolutely ridiculous. It’s getting a LOT of commenting.
I miss CA!! Thank you for the pics. As an ..ahem…older political activist, I came to realize that the media will almost ALWAYS under-represent the “good guys” :0) I’m here in WI, and while I’m not at the capital, I’m sending my best to the folks who are staying overnight.
The way to count a crowd: Look at the crowd (can be done with either pictures or live). Choose a piece of crowd and count out a square that is ten by ten. That’s 100 people. Replicate it mentally (if live) or with your fingers or a ruler (if a photograph) over the crowd.
This is surprisingly accurate, going pretty far into the distance, as you’ll find your eyes make mental adjustments for perspective pretty far away and towards the foreground and sides.
What Liberal Media?
Thanks, Mary. Gotta call ‘em when ya see ‘em.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Mary, but there is software available that can be used to string photos together to produce a panorama. Hugin is free software that does this. I used it to create the panoramas in this article. If you were in one spot when you took the photos, it’s possible they could be strung together.
If you need an expert operator, let me know.
Nice job Mary
The first pic is about the grand total that were there on Tuesday
And the SacBee is notoriously anti-union; I’m surprised they even showed up at all.
Next time I will make sure to get panoramic photos of the crowds. And I will find out how to get the most accurate crowd count.
This is exactly what we need our own count with photos of the crowd. People wonder why nobody reads the paper anymore its one sided hack reporting like this that explains it.
Thanks for the update, Mary. BTW, the San Diego Union Trib had absolutely nada about *any* of the rallies, or anything about the protests in WI today. Guess it just wasn’t “newsworthy” enough for the Oligarchs or something.
Last evening’s tv “nooz” in SD called the crowd at the SD rally at about 500, but in discussing it with some other friends who were there (in San Diego), we think the crowd was much closer to 1000.
So, per usual, the corp-owned rightwing media is downgrading the size of the crowds. No surprises there…
And to think that a lot of readers whine incessantly about how “liberal” the Sac Bee is; that’s a joke.
“And to think that a lot of readers whine incessantly about how “liberal” the Sac Bee is…”
Hey, it makes perfect sense to me… that people who think our neocon president is a socialist would think the SacBee is liberal :)
Senator Mary!!! Excellent presentation and graphics.
Thanks to everyone for the info about crowd counting.
This inaccurate reporting is infuriating to say the least!
Go Sacramento!!!!!
“The images give an idea of the density of the two crowds.”
I disagree, no image can properly portray the density of T-GOPers, in fact the density of T-GOPers is one of the mysteries of the universe.
Perhaps they consist entirely of dark-matter?
lolz!!! Dark indeed!!!
I was at both the Tuesday and the Saturday rallies at the California State Capitol. At first, I did not think the Saturday rally would draw as many people as the Tuesday rally as people were slow to show up, and they were gathered in a different area of the West Front, primarily on the upper terrace in front of the West Steps, rather than the lower terrace and the lawn as they were on Tuesday. But as the event got under way and proceeded, the number of people rallying in support of Wisconsin workers and workers everywhere grew substantially.
I’ve been to a lot of protests and rallies at the Capitol, and ondelette’s crowd-count technique (in his post at 5:59a) is pretty much second nature. There were between 2,500 and 3,000 people at the Tuesday rally by my estimation, and between 4,000 and 5,000 at the Saturday rally — using the density of the crowd and their location as markers.
The Bee reported relatively accurately on the Tuesday rally, but they didn’t do so well on the Saturday rally, probably because there was no staff there. The story is bylined Denny Walsh, and he’s been a good reporter for many years. But was he there? And if so, for how long? It does not appear that whoever provided the information actually attended the Saturday rally for more than half an hour or so, if that. The “400″ union supporters mentioned in the story is either a typo or was estimated well before the rally began.
As for the ‘Baggers, there were a handful, I’d say in the low twenties, “counter-protesting” the Tuesday rally while there were about a hundred ‘Baggers gathered in three knots to yap at the union folks across the street on Saturday. 150 is a real stretch.
I personally didn’t see any altercations between ‘Baggers and anyone else — but there was a great moment when the CSUEA gathered in the circle behind the ‘Baggers and then marched and sang their way over to the rally on the West Steps, plowing right through the pathetic TeaBaggers and their sad little display. There were about 150 CSUEA members on the march, and that was way more than the ‘Bagger contingent.
The person I was with did see some shoving and in-your-face stuff between ‘Baggers and union folks but no violence. Her taunt at the ‘Baggers was “Blah-blah-blah-blah blah.” If anyone was trying to be disruptive generally, it was the ‘Baggers. A couple of hundred union supporters were lining 10th Street opposite them, mostly laughing and rolling their eyes, through much of the rally.
There were a lot of high points to the rallies both on Tuesday and Saturday; the disappointment was that there were no signs of any Democratic elected official (and there are a lot of them in Sacramento, ahem) at either rally.
I have a song for them; it’s called “Which Side Are You On?” by Florence Reece which we union supporters sang, lustily if not necessarily harmoniously, at Saturday’s rally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJJ6oZv9ss
♪Come all of you good workers,
Good news to you I’ll tell,
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell.
cho: Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
My daddy was a miner,
And I’m a miner’s son,
And I’ll stick with the union,
Till every battle’s won.
They say in Harlan County,
There are no neutrals there.
You’ll either be a union man,
Or a thug for J.H. Blair.
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can.
Will you be a lousy scab,
Or will you be a man ?
Don’t scab for the bosses,
Don’t listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance,
Unless we organize.♪
Thanks, Mary. The mainstream press have lied about labor issues and stories for as long as I can remember. Such dishonesty in the service of their capitalist masters has gone on for so long now, it must be merely second nature to them.
What a tonic modern technology has delivered to us, in the form of almost instantaneous refutation of their lies.
Great work. Recc’d.
Yes, thanks Mary and to all the folk who recorded the various protests and commented here. It is increasingly evident that the ‘news’ is not news – I went to bed convinced that the Madison Capitol had been uneventfully evacuated, was very surprised to come here and be told otherwise. And this is in a region of the country where you would think they had time to get the story straight.
Mainstream media is adept at leaving out stuff in order to give a contrary impression. It isn’t what you report; it’s what you don’t report.
sigh again, my hometown once had a functioning media
no one’s asked, but I think the 325,000 members of the California Teachers Association should ask Gov Brown (whom they endorsed) to issue a clarification :D
True. Plus it’s what the rightwing talking heads on the radio and on Fake tell their dittoheads to think/believe/say.
Thanks for that update.
Recommended Senator and thanks for the Pics!! Citizen journalism seems to be the only way these stories of People Solidarity are going to get to the People!! Keep up the great reporting!!
We must open more fronts in this War against the Middle Class!
I live on Maui [where, needless to say, there were no protests] and must “rely on” [ha!] the local rag, the Maui News. It consists solely of AP stories & local sports.
The AP story on Madison was horrible, AND, to make matter worse, the only picture the News used to accompany the story was of the TPers and their signs. So the only message one comes away with is a bunch of anti-union slogans.
And this from AP, which you know is running in countless papers.
Experience suggest (to me, at least) that one should add what the March Organizers claim for the march size to what the officials claim to be the march size. Then divide the sum by 2.
So:
Official: 50K
Organizers: 100K
Adjusted tally: 75K
Thanks for the pics and info Mary . . . really appreciated them and the other reports coast to coast . . .
I’ll be at the next one . . . with bells on.
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
As goes WI, so goes the nation.
With us all arm in arm!
I’ll add that Sacto radio/tv is also completely missing from this issue . . . but UC Students in business suits marching got full coverage today . . .
LeSigh.