Impeach Trump Protest Held at Mar-a-Lago, Media Narratives vs Reality

Recently, media from both anti-Trump, and pro-Trump perspectives have been engaged in a deliberate attempt to misrepresent facts, and mislead their audiences. Writers often choose which facts to include in articles, and which to leave out, attempting to create a reality in the minds of their audience, rather than reporting on the actual reality of the event taking place.

One instance of this that can be proven factually, is a Trump impeachment march, which was held in front of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump's Golf club in Palm Beach, Fla. The event was reported inaccurately by both right-wing, and in prima-facie neutral news outlets, which often tend to be secretly or overtly left-wing. Though some local news outlets stuck to the facts, others decided to paint whatever picture they thought was most convenient for their political agenda.

A representative from Informaza.com attended this event, and was independently through video, and a first hand account of the protest, able to verify the true facts regarding this event.

The first discrepancy with reality we will point out comes from politically right-wing MRCTV, supposedly a conservative-leaning media watchdog. MRCTV in an article, chose to use a first-hand account, which Informaza.com can verify to be false, as the source for the number of protesters attending the event.

The article states: “'We got - it looks like 50 -75 people here supporting Trump. Ten people for every one person here against Trump,' One activist told WPEC." This selective use of, what a journalist should know to be, a highly biased account as the single source for figures regarding a protest, is at best lazy journalism, and at worst an attempt to portray a reality that fits a writers political agenda.

Informaza.com can confirm that at the beginning on the manifestation in Palm Beach, there were in fact Trump supporters outnumbering detractors. However, as the rally progressed, the number evened out, and in the end it is debatable as to whether there were more Trump supporters than anti-Trump protesters.

Informaza.com estimates that the amount of Trump supporters who attended in total, is between 20-40 people. The total number of anti-Trump protesters was somewhere between 45-70 people. The range is intentionally broad in order to ensure that the actual number of protesters is somewhere in between the figures stated.

A group of Trump supporters rally in favor of the President

The second discrepancy comes from a news outlet, The Palm Beach Post, which paints itself as neutral, but was written by a politically partisan left-wing writer. The article stated that "more than 100 people marched" demanding Trump's impeachment, this is a gross over representation of the number of protesters in attendance. In order to substantiate their claim, they used camera angles and positions, which painted a larger picture of the crowd than the actual reality of the situation on the ground.

In this case, Informaza.com managed to catch on video, a journalist from CBS5 West Palm Beach, whose video was used in the report from The Palm Beach Post, filming the event from a low angle and creating reality, rather than reporting it. The video from Informaza.com can be seen below in juxtaposition with the video used in the article and broadcast on nightly news, the camera man is highlighted in the video. On twitter, there is another video of the event taken by the writer of the article, but if one were to actually count the people who walked past the camera, in the video, the number is around 45.

The video used in the article, and the picture shown in the headline (included in the video above), is taken from a low angle, and gives the appearance that there may have been a larger number of people in attendance of the rally than actually were present. The video additionally did not represent the presence of pro-Trump protesters in a meaningful way.

While simple distortions of plus or minus 30-50 people may seem insignificant, having a number greater than 100 automatically registers a certain degree of significance in a persons mind psychologically, and is also simply not the reality of the event. Furthermore, these figures are then used in broader reports by national media, and factored into headlines such as one published yesterday which read "Thousands March In 46 US Cities For Donald Trump's Impeachment".

There have been large protests both for, and against the President, but media from both sides of the political spectrum have a vested interest in continuing controversy to boost ratings, and to create a reality that suits their particular political agenda. In a world full of actual controversy, and intrigue, this is actually a shame.

Other unrelated noteworthy facts Informaza.com gathered from the event include:

- There were a small group of people embedded within the pro-Trump protesters, believed to be Oathkeepers, who were heavily organized and used radios to communicate. At least one of these people was believed to be concealing a gun.

- There was one ostensibly pro-Trump woman carrying an Israeli flag, shouting popular right-wing slogans and buzzwords through a megaphone.

- There were a group of people labeling themselves as the "Three Percenters" present, who seem to be a new group. This group of activists was dressed similarly, but distinctly to the protesters suspected of being Oathkeepers.