The “largest in recent memory” is what some observers have called the April 29 anti-war march that flooded Lower Manhattan with some 350,000 protestors demanding the United States to get out of Iraq and not attack Iran.

The march had all the makings of a major media event. Big names carried the banner: the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, big celebrities Susan Sarandon, Mercedes Ruehl and Jonathan Demme and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. Other important voices included Iraq war veterans, religious leaders, immigrant rights activists, labor unions, and the Granny Peace Brigade. Massive numbers: Folks from as far away as California and England.

At one point, participants described looking back on a sea of protestors stretching over 10 blocks on Broadway. Still, one’s sense of this anti-war protest, its size, its significance, and, indeed, whether or not it happened at all, could vary widely depending on the news outlet you relied on.

Parade organizer Leslie Cagan is a veteran of many Vietnam War era anti-war demonstrations. Back then, she noted, protestors became very atuned to the impression news coverage gave others. They paid attention to subtle editorializing in newspapers where a story was placed, what photos were used, and the nuance carried in headlines and captions. Then, protestors felt coverage of protests was sometimes as much a reflection of a media outlet’s bias as a report of events. Fabled media objectivity was, well, fabled.

Television coverage on Saturday night was, Cagan said, “Actually quite good.” Among the stations reporting on the march were CNN, CBS, NBC AND NY1. There was also some mention of it on the ubiquitous Sunday morning talk shows. Newspaper coverage, on the other hand, was, Cagan said, “uneven.”

Newsday’s Sunday edition filled the top third of the paper’s cover with a photo of wall-to-wall people and a subhead announcing “tens of thousands” marched. A story on page three, a place of significance, followed. The New York Post ran its story in an equally prominent place, but with a twist. Along with a large photo of Sharpton, Sarandon and Toussaint was the headline “Peacenik Roger walks again.” A highly editorialized caption called them a “Motley Crew.” A paltry six-paragraph story focused on Toussaint and his recent release from jail, already covered by that paper, rather than the anti-war march.

Apparently, expecting more from the newspaper of record, The New York Times, Cagan said, “The Times was the most outrageous. They put the story in the Metro Section. It’s a national story. I don’t think the rest of the country even sees the Metro Section.” Cagan also took issue with a photo she said “made it look like there were only 25 marchers.”

One labor union newspaper editor, SEIU Local 371’s Martin Fishgold, sent The Times a letter saying its coverage “diminished the size and importance of the event.” He asked why the paper buried the story in a section distributed mainly in the New York area instead of placing it “on your front page or in the National Report in your first section?” Fishgold even circulated an e-mail asking others to contact The Times to register their complaint.

A Times spokesperson countered this criticism saying only, “We don’t think placement in our Metro Section constitutes burial.”

“During the Vietnam War, the activists of the anti-war movement got much more coverage,” Cagan said. That coverage let others know they were not alone and actually “helped the anti-war movement.” Also, the media often reached out to anti-war spokespersons. Today, Cagan doesn’t see that happening.

“Sunday morning TV talk shows don’t carry the voices of dissent. When do they put the Gold Star mothers or Iraq war veterans on these shows?” she asked.

According to NYU journalism professor William Serrin in his book Muckracking! The Journalism That Changed America, “In the 1960s and 1970s, a few voices in the press played an important role in causing the country to reconsider its actions in the Vietnam War.”

As for alternative and ethnic media, Cagan said, “They have been very fair.” She admits the movement needs to reach out to them more. “We have some responsibility there too. We need to feed them more information regularly because when we do they are a gazillion times more responsive and happy to hear from us.”

When asked if the organizers of the largest anti-war protest in decades plan to respond to The Times coverage, Cagan said there will be a discussion of “what action to take in the next day or so.”