Media Matters uncritically reproduced Brooks count/mass error

In an October 25 entry on the Media Matters for America web site, Media Matters repeated claims by New York Times columnist David Brooks that "the amount of American people who have heard about Karl Rove is small." Media Matters disputed the factual claim, but failed to report that Brooks was committing a grammatical error by using 'amount', a mass noun measurement, to refer to 'people', who are discrete entities. From the Tuesday Media Matters site:

New York Times columnist David Brooks claimed that the grand jury investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame is "not a politically important story" because "[t]he amount of American people who have heard about Karl Rove is small." But contrary to Brooks's comments, made on the October 23 broadcast of ABC's This Week, recent public opinion polls indicate that the public is well aware of the White House senior adviser and that many have formed an opinion of him.