Demonstrations can be hard to cover

A participant in a recent demonstration emailed the Union-tribune to dispute the estimated size of the crowd reported in a story on the event.

The reporter said the rally and march around the County Administration Center in support of Palestine drew about 500 people.

The participant said the crowd was more than twice that. He described the 500 estimation as a “blatant” undercount. An event organizer gave the reporter that number.

The email points to the difficulty and complexity of covering these kind of demonstrations, many of which can be highly emotional. Besides estimating the number of participants, reporters and editors must consider terminology and even to cover a rally in the first place.

Crowd size

Reporters use various methods to reach a crowd size number, public safety editor Kristina Davis said.

Reporters are instructed to ask multiple sources — police, event organizers, another reporter, or the photographer assigned to the coverage. They should take those estimates and see how they line up with their own approximation.

A couple of caveats: police might not be there if the event is small, and reporters must be careful with organizers’ guesses, since they can sometimes inflate numbers, Davis said.

One technique a reporter can use is to count about 50 people, then match that group size for the event as a whole, she said.

In an enclosed space, such a city council chambers, reporters can use posted room capacity sizes to estimate attendance, Davis said.

Sometimes, though, a number might be so uncertain, she said, that the reporter is forced to be vague (“hundreds gathered ...”), or the reporter might have to omit a crowd size.

When a number is reported, it should be attributed in the story.

In the instance of the Palestine supporters event, the 500 was not pinned to a source. This lack of attribution, I believe, led the person who emailed to falsely infer bias was at work.

Terminology

Words, descriptions must be thoughtfully chosen. Following are examples from the U-T’S Language and Style Committee:

activist/advocate: An activist is someone who directly presses for political or social change at the street level. An advocate typically supports the work of activists through such actions as donating or lobbying.

demonstrator/protester: The words can be used interchangeably when referring to people taking actions to register dissent.

rally/protest: A rally is a gathering for a common purpose and is not always a protest. It could be an action to support a political candidate or to raise awareness of an issue. A protest is an action taken to register dissent. When covering such activities, we should ask organizers the goal of the gathering.

riot, rioters: Use with care to and only to describe situations in which there is an uncontrolled, violent and/or destructive disturbance of the peace. (Legal definition in California: Two or more people acting together without authority of law to willfully use force or violence or disturb the peace. Riots can be in a place of confinement as well, such as a jail.)

unrest, clash: Avoid using words that suggest violence when describing largely peaceful protests. Unrest is a term for a condition of angry discontent and protest verging on revolt.

To cover or not

Many factors are at play when deciding to cover a rally: The event’s size; will opposing sides be present; is the event timely, connected to current news; is the rally new as compared to similar past ones, which already might have received coverage.

But, Davis said, there can be exceptions. A small demonstration might still be newsworthy, for instance. Reporters and editors will deliberate to decide, she said.

Davis also noted such factors as staff resources that day; other, concurrent events that might warrant coverage; and if reporters or editors know about a gathering. Davis said some events are highly grass-roots with little or no release outside a group.

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