Instapundit getting updates about the big protest in London.

Instapundit.com ^ | 11/20/03 | Instapundit

[Pikamax]

November 20, 2003

HERE'S A LIVE WEBCAM VIEW of Trafalgar Square. Doesn't look like 100,000 people to me, to the extent you can tell from one webcam. Nor to Andy at World Wide Rant.

UPDATE: This BBC story still says 100,000 are "expected" -- but if you scroll down you'll see that it's really more like 30-40,000. That's about 10% of the number who showed up to protest the fox-hunting ban. And yeah, I know these numbers don't mean much in themselves. But the downward trend seems pretty clear.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Email from London suggests that protesters aren't exactly overrunning the place. And here's a photo from a London blogger's office window that makes the turnout seem less than overwhelming, too. Reader Rick Bradley emails:

Is it just me, or are this week's British protests strikingly reminiscent of the Martha Burk protests at the Augusta National this spring?

Yes, like the New York Times with Augusta, the BBC has been doing everything it could to pump turnout -- only, it appears, to produce a rather disappointing number of actual protesters. Do you think the media are paper tigers?

posted at 10:15 AM by Glenn Reynolds

[Prodigal Son]

You know, these funamentalist leftists need to figure out the calculus one day. If they truly expect 30,000 they should claim to expect 10,000. That way they can later say "3 times as many people showed up as we expected. This demonstrates that dissatisfaction is even higher..."

Instead they always go this route "100,000 are going to come here" and 30,000 show up. Later they are always left with parsing numbers with the media.

[Redcoat LI]

Hello Traflgar Square?,I'd like to make a reservation for 100,000 for Thursday,non-smoking.

[diamondjoe]

Yes, but recent events show that they get 1/3 of what they claim to expect. Thus, they are in a bind, and there is no conceivable way for them to state expectations with the hope of spurring attendance, and at the same time understate their expectations so that they can claim an overwhelming response.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Luckily, the lamestream media has Michael Jackson and Istanbul to cover today, so they won't have to admit their mistake or report the truth.