Mainstream media finally covers London March for Freedom, still underestimates number of protesters

This article features two videos and an article. One of the videos was published by The New York Times on May 29, 2021, with the title Hundreds Protest Vaccine Passports in London. The other is a 3-minute video from Hugo Talks which is a collection of short clips taken by those who joined the protest. The article was published by The Guardian on May 29. 2021, with the title Anti-Vaccine Passport Protesters Storm Westfield Mall In London.

Editor’s Note: In all three sources, it is clear that tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) attended the event. New York Times played it safe by saying “hundreds” have joined the protest. But as can be seen in the Hugo Talks video, and as accepted by the Guardian article (see below), this description is a clear underestimation. It is a clear attempt to misinform those who are loyal followers of the media company.

Meanwhile, the Guardian article said. “At its height, there appeared to be hundreds of thousands of people taking part”. This is the first time that a mainstream news outfit has accepted how huge is this movement against mandatory vaccination and vaccination passports. But you need to reach the middle of the article to see that sentence. The very first sentence of the same article said, “Hundreds of anti-vaccine passport protesters invaded the Westfield shopping center”.

Obviously, if you’re most internet readers (who read only the first paragraph of an article), then you’ll leave the page thinking that this was a violent protest initiated by a couple of hundred people – conspiracy theorists who do not represent the insights of the bigger majority. But if you read the entire article, you will see that the title and the first sentence were both false. The “storming” into the mall was uneventful, and the hundreds of thousands of protesters actually marched around London to show communities of their true numbers.

The features from New York Times and The Guardian are clear signs that mainstream media is losing its ground for manipulation. They are forced to cover events with as much “objectivity” as they can because they know that millions are supporting this cause. They know that if they make a wrong move, they could go the same way as BBC and Facebook, and they could suffer a contraction of their user/viewer/reader base.

The COVID manipulation is crumbling, and even the “fact-checkers” are being cautious when they try to protect their co-conspirators.

On the same day of the London protests, a fake image of a BBC telecast began circulating on various social media platforms (see below). This was actually a meme criticizing the BBC’s lack of coverage of the weekly London protests, despite the huge attendance at these events.

In just a few hours, UnFox News, a less well-known fact-checking site (which is critical against a specific party in the US), released a fact-check for the image saying that it is fake. Here is a short excerpt from the UnFox article:

Note that this fact-check added the “anti-lockdown protests” covered by the BBC (the link pointing to only ONE coverage, that of the May 15 demonstrations which were held right in front of the BBC headquarters), and was careful to append that the BBC has not covered the May 29th protest. In another part of the article, UnFox also cited the Guardian article (discussed above). But instead of citing the estimate of “hundreds of thousands” of people from The Guardian, UnFoxed used “tens of thousands” and added, “but we cannot verify that estimate”.

These organizations have had to use more clever ways of masking their fake news because they have to cover their tracks (or else risk the ire of the people who wrongly trusted them). In the same way, we, citizens, must also become more sophisticated in the way we analyze reports from mainstream media and their cohorts.