A Correction on Crowd Size at API Rally

The American Petroleum Institute is taking issue with a crowd estimate included in a story I linked to yesterday that was published in our sister-publication, The American Independent.

The story focused on an API-sponsored rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, that had around 80 attendees. Though API estimates the crowd was more like 100 people, it is not quibbling with that reporting. API spokeswoman Cathy Landry says that they expected the rallies in Corpus Christi and Port Arthur, Texas, to be smaller and saw the Houston rally as the main event.

But API is taking issue with this sentence: “A live video feed of the Houston event — the largest of the Texas rallies — showed what appeared to be hundreds of people in attendance.”

API says more than 5,000 people showed up at the Houston rally and a source that attended the rally confirms that there were thousands of people in attendance. We should not have estimated crowd size based on a video feed and I should have called API for comment before publishing the post.