Crowd estimates ranged from 500,000 to 1.15 million, but it was clear that the March for Women's Lives was one of the largest protests in the capital's history—and perhaps the largest ever. The previous record for a women's rights rally was the up to 750,000 who marched in 1992; the 2004 turnout rivaled and likely surpassed landmark gatherings like the 1995 Million Man March (estimated at 870,000) and the 1969 Vietnam protest (approximately 600,000). The historic nature of the event, though, was not reflected in mainstream media coverage.
USA Today, the most widely read newspaper in the country, ran a single march story (11/25/04)—on page 3. While some newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, published a handful of march-related stories over a few days, others ignored the event almost completely: The New York Daily News made two brief mentions of the march, one buried in an article on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (4/24/04) and another in an article on Kerry's wife (4/26/04). Of the three mainstream newsweeklies, only Newsweek published a single story related to the march (4/26/04).
A look at national television news also turned up remarkably few reports: A Nexis search of the week surrounding the women's march found a total of eight stories on the march from the broadcast networks (not counting incidental mentions). ABC, CBS and NBC all ran two stories the day of the march; CBS also ran two stories the next morning. CNN, as a 24-hour cable news outlet, gave more extensive coverage to the event, running several reports on Sunday. But even CNN failed to treat the march as the historic occasion that it was, running just a small handful of brief march-related stories on Saturday and Monday.
To put the women's march coverage in perspective, FAIR conducted a similar Nexis search of the week surrounding the Promise Keepers march in 1997. The Promise Keepers, an evangelical men's organization with an anti-feminist and anti-gay theology, drew an estimated 480,000–750,000 demonstrators to Washington—roughly three-quarters the size of the women's march. Despite its somewhat smaller size, the Promise Keepers received far more media attention: Stories began appearing on network news three days before the march and continued for two days afterward, with a total of 26 stories between the three broadcast networks—more than three times the coverage the networks devoted to the women's march.
Though USA Today doesn't publish a weekend edition, it still managed to run four stories on the Promise Keepers the week before and four stories the week after the Saturday rally. The three major newsweeklies published a total of five articles on the Promise Keepers rally (U.S. News & World Report, 9/29/97, 10/6/97; Time, 10/6/97, 10/6/97; Newsweek, 10/13/97). Even the New York Times' seven march-related stories and two photos were outnumbered by its 10 stories and six photos on the Promise Keepers rally.
At the same time, some news outlets elevated the significance of counter-protesters, a few hundred of whom demonstrated along the march route—roughly one-thousandth of the number that marched in support of women's rights. Though it ran an editorial in support of the march on April 25, Long Island Newsday placed its march story the following day on page 5—after its page 4 article on counter-protesters.
Cable news gave remarkably heavy coverage to the march opponents. Of three Fox News stories found on Nexis related to the march, two focused on anti-abortion activists (Special Report with Brit Hume, Hannity & Colmes, 4/22/04). Special Report examined anti-abortion opposition to the National Education Association's endorsement of the march—a story that MSNBC also covered (4/27/04) in that network's only march report found in the Nexis database.
CNN, too, played up the presence of the counter-protesters. On Live Today (4/26/04), for example, an anchor explained that "both sides rally to get their point across"—as if the two rallies were at all comparable in size or newsworthiness. CNN Sunday Morning (4/25/04) described Washington as "the site of opposing rallies" and interviewed an equal number of abortion opponents and march supporters, in both soundbite quotes and full-length interviews.
and on it goes.
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