Cup of coffee in hand, I always check the usual morning papers around the world, British Press, US Press, Canadian Press, sometimes the Arab and Israeli press.
While there are always differences of points of view, thats why I read so many sources, numbers are numbers. During the anti war protests the troubling non coverage or incredibly odd numbers were apparent to many of us and now today we have this.
Our friends at CNN have 200,000 people on the streets of Beirut protesting the government of Siniora but the Canadian press has 800,000. If the difference was a couple of hundred thousand I would perhaps say business as usual, but 600,000 difference. Someone forgot the calculator at home or their spectacles.
Hezbullah insist of course on one million. Thats how it works, but that various sources can be so wildly different says something is off..wildly. So what is going on here?
Huge Beirut rally demands PM quit
POSTED: 11:34 a.m. EST, December 1, 2006
Story Highlights• 200,000 protesters gather in Beirut for rally called for by Hezbollah (CNN)
About 800,000 protest in Beirut for new government
Last Updated: Friday, December 1, 2006 | 9:54 AM ET
CBC News Police estimated the crowd at about 800,000, while Hezbollah said it believed the number was closer to one million — one-quarter of Lebanon's population (CBC)
The BBC out of the UK says hundreds of thousands but does not mention the 800,000 figure as posted by the Lebanese police spokesman. How do you lose 600,000 in downtown Lebanon. Does anyone know where they went? If you don't perhaps someone could enlighten me to where CNN is getting its numbers.