by Jaimela King

Created on: May 10, 2009

News reports were awash with claims that Senator John McCain had drawn larger crowds to his campaign rallies after Sarah Palin joined his ticket on August 29,2008. The claims are now being questioned as lacking in any substantive verification. President Obama's inauguration had journalists estimating numbers in the millions that was more indicative of media propaganda than actual science. Estimating the size of a crowd is still not an exact science even though there are few theories about how this can be accomplished.

Steve Doitin his article, looks at some of the creative ways journalists have been estimating crowd sizes. The Mob measurement technique was started in 1960 by a University of Berkley California Journalism instructor. The rules he designed are still used by some journalists today.

1. A loose crowd. This is when each person is at arms length from the next closest person. This will give each person 10 square feet of space.

2. A tight crowd. Where a crowd is more tightly packed, each person would use 4.5 square feet of space

3. A mob like crowd. Here you are looking at a higher density crowd, with practically no personal space giving each person about 2.5 square feet.

4. Measure the square feet of the area being occupied and divide by square feet figure chosen, depending upon the crowd density.

There are several other ways used to estimate the crowd sizes at an event. Just ask any reporter how they came up with their figures and you will get a myriad of answers. David Akin advocates the benefits of doing your own counting which many reporters do, but they can also seek help in coming up with an estimate by essentially doing things the old fashioned way and with the help of technology.

1. Count. Even when there are other sources for getting crowd estimates, it is still the responsibility of a reporter to count. That way the reporter has ownership of the claims being made. You can count chairs when they are provided, count heads when sitting or standing and be sure to count the late arrivals, even though this is often a challenging task.

2. Get an estimate from the officials like security, police, organizers and catering staff. If it is a catered event, the caterer should know how many plates are being prepared. Security officials always have their own estimate of the potential crowd size, probably based on the density calculation. If a turnstile is used or tickets are taken, you have yet another source for estimating the crowd size.

3. Ask other journalists. So your count is 1,000, but another journalist got 1,800. It is a good idea to find out how that figure was arrived at. You may then need to adjust your figures, or if you are close enough, go with the figure you have.

4. Satellite images. This is another method being used to estimating crowd size. An estimate of 800,000 for Obama's inauguration ceremony was the result of Stephen Doit's analysis of a military controlled GeoEye-1 satellite image shot.

Whether you are covering a parade, a mass protest, an inauguration ceremony or a tea party, you have the responsibility to report your crowd estimates as accurately as possible. The availability of satellite technology, while still not an exact science, may soon make this task a lot easier. In the meantime, journalists need to avoid the urge to inflate or deflate crowd statistics for political, egotistical or other means.

Learn more about this author, Jaimela King.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.