Million Mom March

(Washington, D.C.) Since the volume of news reports probably outnumbered the marchers, it's safe to assume that everybody has heard of the Million Mom March held yesterday in the nation's capitol. Estimates vary, but 2,500 seems to be the general consensus on the upper limit of attendees. The march was against guns. They don't like guns and they want everybody else not to like guns. Yada-yada-yada.

My question concerns the fact that there is no way to fudge the arithmetic to justify naming the event the Million Mom March. 2,500 is 0.25% of 1 million which is not even close. Now, agreed, this is not a major issue but, repeated often enough, someone will come to believe that a million moms showed up. So, why doesn't the media point out the obvious disparity? I don't know exactly, but it does appear the media generally gives liberal causes a pass on their estimates. For example, estimates of homeless populations, of date rapes, of homosexual populations, of abusive husbands, and many other groupings, frequently seem to be gross exaggerations when examined. No doubt that in many cases exact figures are unavailable but, even so, any ridiculous over or underestimation should be pointed out to news readers. Not doing so gives the outlandish number some credibility. That's wrong.

As a caveat, this inattention to arithmetic detail doesn't seem to apply when the media reports on human disasters. In those instances, there seems to be a blanket policy of reporting figures with disclaimers stating that they are unconfirmed or unverified.

Nevertheless, it seems the prudent posture is to be highly skeptical of any unsupported or unverified numbers reported by the media. Since public opinion and public policy are often influenced by the numbers reported, it's irresponsible for the media to report outrageous figures without question or comment. It's also sad. Too often, when arithmetic is involved, the media are not society's watchdogs.