Did 'New York Times' Blow Coverage of Antiwar March?

By: Greg Mitchell The story in The New York Times looked about right: top of the page, a five-column head, and a huge photo of marchers outside the White House. After all, as the story made clear, the demonstration in Washington, D.C. had far exceeded everyone's estimates, with turnout at least 100,000, or more, making it probably the biggest antiwar protest in the nation's capital since the height of the Vietnam war. No wonder it got major play.

There was just one problem: The march took place last Saturday and the story did not run until today.

The story, on A17, by Kate Zernike, had "make-up article" written all over it, possibly in response to many organized protest letters sent to the Times since the paper's weak, and inaccurate, initial article about the march on Sunday.

That much-briefer Sunday piece had observed, "Fewer people attended than organizers had said they hoped for...Participants said the shootings in and aournd the city in the last three weeks had kept people from planning to visit Washington."

In today's article, however, the Times disclosed that the marchers formed a "two-mile wall" outside the White House, that march organizers had taken out a permit for just 20,000 attendees (and five times that many came) and expected just 30 buses loaded with marchers (and 650 buses showed up). The article, showing further evidence of "make-up" mentioned other demonstrations last week, and those planned for the future around the country, quoted several antiwar activists, and described numerous other anti-war efforts, including vote referendums and online petitions.