Claim: No American flags were on display at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Origin:On 26 July 2016, the Facebook page "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children" posted a photograph purportedly showing the Palestinian flag on display in the audience during the opening day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention (DNC), along with the claim that American flags had been banned at the event because they were "offensive to so many Democrats":
Several other right-wing web sites known as purveyors of misinformation, such as The Gateway Pundit, Barenaked Islam,and The Daily Caller also published articles reporting that no American flags were present at the DNC:
The Daily Caller is at the Democratic National Convention and it doesn’t look like there are any American flags.
The stage is bland and grey, with no red, white or blue present. A thorough look at the crowd present also turns up no American flags.
In an attempt to further illustrate their point, the Daily Caller presented an image contrasting of Kristen Gillibrand speaking at the DNC with Donald Trump speaking at the Republican National Convention (RNC):
Of course, this image was deliberately misleading, as the staging of both the RNC and the DNC employed large digital displays as backdrops for their speakers. For instance, the U.S. flags on view behind Donald Trump in the image above were digital renditions and not physical flags, as can be seen in the transition shot below:
The digital backdrop at the RNC changed throughout the proceedings, and at times it appeared just as flagless as the DNC's supposedly did:
These web sites cherry-picked photographs in order to make it appear that no U.S. flags (in either physical or digital form) were on display at the Democratic National Convention. And the Daily Caller must not have looked very hard, as the scene at first day of the DNC exhibited a healthy share of red, white, and blue patriotism, in both digital and physical form:
It's also false to state or imply that the DNC banned the display of American flag at their event among the audience, as numerous convention-goers were photographed holding flags or wearing flag-based gear on Day 1 of the convention:
Fox News, at least, eventually admitted their error in reporting that there were “no American flags” in the convention hall:
Last updated: 26 July 2016
Originally published: 26 July 2016
Featured Image: FLICKR
Dan Evon is a Chicago-based writer and longtime truth enthusiast. His work has appeared somewhere, and he earned a degree at the University of His Choosing. His exploration of Internet truth has been supported by grants from the Facebook Drug Task Force.