11alive.com: On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans. Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.
But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop: those are Russian warships.
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I remember hearing talk about this at school a week or so ago, and last I heard the DNC itself denied responsibility for the images and blamed the content designer. Way to go, guys.
This brings up the issue of what to do when an artist produces something offensive: if it comes under the scrutiny of someone important, or enough less-important someones, who is to take the blame for it? The artist himself or the institution that paid him to do it? I can't imagine that the footage was never shown to a DNC representative at some point, and that the error could have been caught. Conversely, maybe the content designer should have been a little more careful in his choice of footage? Or did the DNC give him footage to work from?
In order to really understand what the situation evolved from, I'd like to see a followup article explaining how the error came to be. I fear, though, if it was the DNC and not the content designer, we may never find out.
If what Kael said is true, about the DNC denying responsibility for the images and placed all the blame on the content designer, I think that they need to re-examine their internal structure. In such a politically high-stakes environment, there should be fact checkers that look at every single thing being shown on the television on connection with the party to make sure that it is in line with what the part is talking about.
What seems odd to me is the fact that there was a non-American flag flying on one of the ships, and after seeing it, why no one thought to check into it. Without the flag, it might be possible that the image was run by fact checkers who just didn't have enough military knowledge to recognize a Russian warship from an American one. Regardless, it was absolutely at least partly the fault of the DNC. Yes, the content designer should also have checked, but to put something up on national television without some other form of verification is irresponsible and reckless.
On the other hand, maybe they did it on purpose... We did "win" the Cold War, so maybe this was a subtle, misguided attempt to showcase America's power? "Look at these big warships that we kind of defeated, but we never actually engaged with".... maybe?
Who cares where the pictures of the ships came from? I just want to make sure that when I cast my vote for Barack O-bomb-a he has the cannon fire to back up his Nobel Peace Prize!
The DNC did in fact issue an apology for the error, and cited it as "due to vendor error, incorrect images appeared". Although they couldn't just apologize and let it go at that, they needed to make sure they stuck a bit of a dig in there about the RNC. “This error should not distract from the words of Admiral Nathman and others who spoke to President Obama's strong record on issues that impact those who have served our nation. We're proud of the service and sacrifice of our veterans and military families, and while they were an important and active part our of convention, Mitt Romney failed to even mention them in his speech in Tampa.” Everyone always has to make a last dig... I guess that's just politics for you.
This reminds me of the time at the Olympics this year when the South Korean flag was mistakenly displayed instead of the North Korean one at a soccer game. The level of fallout and backlash was basically the same. It seems crazy to me that the discrepancy with the
Russian warships could have been overlooked by every person who looked at the media content for the convention. Did all of the content shown not need to be approved with the party itself before the convention? It would be foolish if that was the case.
I feel like calling this a big screw up is an understatement. As designers, we need to check our sources to make sure that all of our media is accurate and, in the case of this display, the designer clearly did not. Most likely what happened was that the photo was pulled from a stock photo source, but the photo was not described as accurately as could have been. As an american citizen with no naval affiliation, I will willingly admit that I would have made the same screw up if I looked up a photo of naval ship on a photo stock website. What should have been done, is the media design should have found a person with military or naval experience to check that the photo was he or she though it was. On a small scale this slip up might not be a noticeable, but the DNC is a big deal, and with importance also come the expectation that one's material will be accurate.
How exactly does one make a mistake this basic? While I'm not certain where the content designer would have gotten the images, surely something would have said which fleet was in the footage, or at least noticed the non-American flag and checked further to make sure it was, in fact, an American fleet being pictured.
I appreciate the service of Mr. Barker, the former electronics technician who spotted this mistake. I am not a Democrat, Republican or anything else, and I don't think you need to wear an American flag pin on your lapel to respect and honor those who serve this country (in fact I think wearing a flag on your lapel kind of cheapens it). However: THIS IS NOT NEWS. It is exactly the type of useless sound byte that distracts from quality public debate and gives politicians on both sides license to make specious claims about the patriotism of their opponents. Mr. Barker refrains from this, mostly, but it's not him I worry about. I wouldn't be surprised if this stupid gaffe (and it is stupid and avoidable) will wind up in the purile drivellings of some hack politician this week. I don't begrudge Mr. Barker for noticing, in fact I marvel at his well tuned observational powers and sleep better at night that my fellow citizens in the military are manning their radar screens so adeptly. We are all indebted to them. What I do begrudge are the news outlets on both sides of the political debate who report stories like this that again, are NOT NEWS.
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