Barn Raising

I don't think anyone should particularly try very hard to correct the Wikipedia article.  But the fact is -- there being no neutral point of view available here -- that one point of view is that there were "hundreds" (but less than a thousand) in Toronto's Oct. 28 demo, and another point of view is that there were more than 2,000. And that's not reflected in the article, which relies only on mainstream media sources, which notoriously understate numbers at demonstrations. (I believe it was the Toronto Star which claimed initially that they had proof that there were only 37,000 people at the Metro Days of Action, even though any fool present, or even just watching on TV, could plainly see that there were certainly several times that present. After the claim was discredited, they retracted it, but offered a new fabricated number, 74,000, arrived at by doubling the first number, just adding to their embarrassment.)

Personally, I don't think it matters much whether the Wikipedia article understates the numbers on Oct. 28 in Toronto.  Obviously, understating numbers of protestors is just one of the things that mainstream publications do, and I'm sure they did that when they covered the March on Washington in 1963. Movements either get built or they don't, and such publications have little or no effect.  At the times when left movements have been strongest, the news media have usually been more hostile and dishonest than they are today.  And the labour movement grew to great power and prominence in years when there were conscious camapigns to destroy unions carried out with great intensity by major newspapers, all to no avail.  So, while agree with Chomsky-ish critiques of the media, I also think that powerful oppositional movements can and often are built in the face of lying, slander and disinformation from the "news" business.

As for Wikipedia, it is certainly interesting, and I rely on it sometimes, to update me about what people who use the internet a lot think about what something or someone is, when I don't know.  But, it has to be taken with a grain of salt (like everything else), because often it includes false information, and this is not always fixable, even if there are people motivated to fix it.  (For an example, see the article on People's Global Action), which has been subjected to a relentless campaign designed to discredit a global anti-capitalist network, relying on fabricated charges that it is somehow involved in "left/right convergence," i.e., cooperation between fascists and leftists.  Wikipedia seems vulnerable to that kind of abuse, although a bigger problem is ill-informed people writing about a topic, which happens often enough in the philosophy articles, in my view.)

Having said all of that, I actually feel gratitude for all the work that others do on Wikipedia.  As long as one approaches it critically, it is a very positive thing (which is not something I would say about the Toronto Star).