Size Matters
Usually when I extract a story from the vault, I am prepared to cringe a little—at the datedness or journalese or naivete of the young reporter. Dusting off this 1991 Los Angeles Times column one, ”Propaganda, Truth Duel in Crowd Counts,” I was pleasantly surprised by the continued relevance of its premise. Not that I was exactly blowing the lid off the great crowd guesstimate racket. Shocking: The tallies for most protests or parades tend to be wildly imprecise, often reflecting the agenda of the talliers. That said, 19 years later, crowd counting is still more gamesmanship than science, and if you substitute gay marriage for gay rights, Tea Partiers for antiabortion crusaders, Iraq and Afghanistan for the Gulf War, the stakes are just as high.