Coverage of Glenn Beck's rally in Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran under the headline "Beck draws crowd to "Restoring honor'"

How large a crowd? is a question still being debated. Beck told the crowd that he had heard estimates of 300,000 to 500,000. CBS News put the number at 87,000, plus or minus 9,000. Some claim over a million attended.

Two stories in Sunday's Post-Dispatch made a pass at reporting the crowd size.

The main story, by the Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau, reported:

Crowd estimated at 200,000 • Crowd sizes are difficult to estimate on the National Mall. Both federal officials and District of Columbia authorities refrain from making even informal estimates because of controversy. Organizers estimated that 500,000 gathered on the Mall, and said another 120,000 were watching the event streamed to a dedicated Facebook page. Although there was no independent confirmation of the estimate, the crowd was densely packed and stretched for blocks, approximating events that have been estimated at 200,000 or more.

A second article -- by Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Bill Lambrecht -- was even less specific. Lambrecht wrote:

Organizers had a permit for 300,000 people. The National Park Service stopped making official crowd estimates more than a decade ago after being accused of undercounting the Million Man March.

One reader wrote a letter to the editor complaining that the stories deserved better display in the Post-Dispatch than Page A11. (A photograph of Cardinals star Albert Pujols speaking at the rally appeared on Page One and referred readers to the full page of coverage inside.)

The reader also challenged the Tribune's crowd estimate, saying it was "significantly higher than what was quoted in the paper." The reader's email included the photograph that accompanies this item. She wrote: "Tell me that's 200,000 after you use your sources to estimate that crowd."