Washpost.com: Marc Fisher has superhuman counting powers

I'm a big fan of Washingtonpost.com. I'm not going to lie. I work for the parent Company- WPNI, under LoudounExtra.com- started in May as a summer intern and continue to contribute as a freelancer.

But now that that's out of the way, I have every intention of commenting to the best of my ability on WashPost.com's articles, blogs, and features.

The entry of interest today is a post from blogger/columnist Marc Fisher on the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax on Sept. 10.

In this piece, he mentions this offhandedly.

"The crowd, which I counted at 8,000 but which police estimated at 23,000, gathered at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax City represented votes for John McCain but passion for Palin."

Now read that again.

"The crowd, which I counted at 8,000."

What!? Okay, I was at this rally, covering it for UWire Youth Vote '08 (shameless plug) and there were so many people there- I can't even comprehend how he managed to count even half the audience, much less the entire thing. I'm sure crowd-counting is one of those skills you gather as you grow more experienced with journalism, but this crowd was PACKED and active- they weren't standing still, they were jumping up and down, screaming, waving signs and generally moving. How on earth did he try to count it?

That point aside, he brings up a good point. The official number from the McCain campaign at the rally was 23,000- the police reported closer to 27,000. As I was standing up on the press bleachers, journalists around me were estimating the audience was over 15,000.

Whatever it is, it's known that campaigns are notorious for overexaggerating crowds. But in this instance- how would they even attempt to keep count? Of course they'll have an accurate count of the journalists there- we had to sign up and such- but unless someone was standing by the security check point with one of those little number counter things ticking people off as they went through, I really don't know how they could keep track of this.

How much should journalists take campaigns at their words? How important is this figure in a story like this? This rally was reported to be the largest crowd McCain had ever drawn.

It's hard to know.