As Breitbart’s Joel Pollack investigates, both The Wall Street Journal and Politico reported that President Obama’s Saturday rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin drew a crowd of 18,000 supporters.

That’s at least a bit odd, since the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reported that the President was speaking at a 5,000-seat arena . The report added that “thousands more who sat in bleachers and stood on the pavement,” but made no mention of the abnormally large 18,000 estimate.

But where did national reporters get their numbers? Probably from the White House pool report, which reported that an Obama campaign official told the pooler that Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett said that the crowd was 18,000.

From the report:

Obama spoke to a large crowd in an amphitheater. O campaign official said Mayor Barrett said crowd was 18,000. Crowd was enthusiastic, even as rain started to come down and the wind picked up. POTUS wrapped up his remarks at about 5:47 p.m. Motorcade departed event site at 6 p.m. headed to airport.

The report was filed by David Nakamura of the Washington Post.

“The crowd filled the seats in the theater, but aside from the standing ovation, the tone in the room was a bit more formal that the normal rallies in gyms and outdoors, with the audience seated most of the time and applauding more politely,” Nakamura noted earlier. “At the end he got another standing ovation.”