Discovery Channel "Documentary" is Shameful

triforcharity said:
I watched it, and I didn't portray it as them stating it as fact, but maybe I missed something.
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I wasn't paying that close of attention, but I was certainly under the impression that the boat attack was an actual, factual event.

But it gets worse...in their after hours "live" show, when an actual shark expert stated that there is no evidence for a modern day Megalodon, he was pretty much "labled" as a killjoy for not believing in it's modern day existence without evidence.

...so yeah, apparently the Discovery channel can not be relied upon for rational scientific inquiry, but I already knew that from some of their previous shows.


Wil Wheaton's blog post was right on regarding this...shame on you Discovery Channel.
 
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It sounds a little bit like Nigel Marven's Prehistoric Park, although that show clearly said it was a "what if" scenario in the opening titles.
 
Megalodon said:
Regarding the "documentary" I only have to say that, just as I thought that the Discovery Channel couldn't sink any lower... Now they just need to pair up with the History Channel to make a 'Giant Nazi Sharks from Outer Space put Hitler in power' "documentary".
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Face it. In entertainment the only person you can be sure won't sink any lower is James Cameron.
 
Brown said:
Not sure whether this has been posted yet: Salon.com's "Discovery Channel kicks off Shark Week with dishonest documentary."
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...and for those who say "what's the harm/it's just entertainment", there is this quote from the above link...



...some 70 percent of viewers of the Discovery Channel now believe that the Megadolon exists, according to an open letter written in Discover Magazine by Christie Wilcox, an evolutionary biologist and freelance writer. Wilcox writes that nearly everything depicted in the documentary “is a complete and total myth”.
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The "harm" is in the spreading of lies, when the truth is widely known.
 
Megalodon said:
Regarding the "documentary" I only have to say that, just as I thought that the Discovery Channel couldn't sink any lower... Now they just need to pair up with the History Channel to make a 'Giant, Bigfoot, Nazi Sharks from Outer Space put Hitler in power' "documentary".
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Fixed that for ya. :)
 
No one has denied that the show included disclaimers that it was fiction. This makes it no different than "Fear of a Black Hat"--it's entertainment, not education. You can complain, but really there's no justification for it from a legal perspective. As for the moral perspective, I haven't seen the show but frankly I don't see anything horribly wrong with it. It wasn't presented as true, and if they provided some factual information it would be the modern-day equivalent of a Jules Vern book (ever read "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"?).

Also, anyone who thinks the Discovery Channel still has credibility is getting what they deserve. They abandoned that when they went to Reality TV and the like. They also have a number of shows on UFOs, aliens, "mysteries" that are anything but, etc. My wife and I both have science backgrounds, me in paleontology, her in physics, and both of us in geology.We also know a bit more than your average American about the European Middle Ages (not experts by any means). ANY show that touches on ANY of those topics is either grossly over-simplified to the point of dishonesty or is outright wrong. When they can't get the stuff you know right, the odds of them getting the stuff you don't know right is pretty much nil.

This sort of thing annoys me, but neither surprises me nor causes any sense of rage. It's standard operating procedure for that channel, and it wasn't presented as fact anyway.
 
Here's the blurb from their website describing the show:

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/shark-week/tv-shows/tv-shows.htm

Discovery brings SHARK WEEK viewers on a search for a massive killer Great White Shark responsible for a rash of fatalities off the coast of South Africa. One controversial scientist believes that the shark responsible could be Megalodon, a 60-foot relative of the Great White that is one of the largest and most powerful predators in history. Our oceans remain 95% unexplored, and this massive prehistoric predator has always been shrouded in secrecy, but after a rash of newly discovered evidence, authorities are forced to investigate and hunt for the predator long thought to be extinct. A crew of scientists and shark experts examine evidence and fearlessly seek answers to the many questions surrounding one of the last great mysteries of the deep ocean while creating the largest chum slick in history.
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No where does it say that it's fictional. In fact, it strongly implies megalodon could still exist.
 
As I earlier posted, I wasn't paying that close of attention, but I certainly thought the footage of the boat being attacked was real...and rather scary, and I think that's the point...it's not education, it's "lowest common denominator" entertainment.

It wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and that's really sad for a channel that I thought was supposed to be educational.

The discovery Channel, in their "wisdom" decided that wild speculation regarding a giant shark was perfect for shark week...and they don't care if people nit pick it, because the bottom line isn't to educated viewers, the bottom line is money.


So yeah, we shouldn't be too surprised by this, but it's still very sad...
 
If I remember right, when the novel "Jaws" came out, it invoked megalodon. And the movie, though not using the word, showed a picture of megalodon jaws to imply that sharks could get really big.

And the response from oceanographers was hostile. If I remember right, Philippe Cousteau appeared on "The Tonight Show" and ridiculed the science behind the movie. He compared the film to a Japanese-made monster movie. Some writers referred to "Jaws," both the movie and the novel, as science fiction that did not involve the future or space travel.
 
I watched that.

I got a little suspicious at the first picture of the giant shark fin, my suspicions were confirmed by the fake Nazi sub shark fin picture.
 
Sideroxylon said:
Or the BBC.
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Not perfect though.

There was a bit of criticism a couple of years back when Frozen Planet showed baby polar bears which were actually shot in a zoo, not the wild. I think it a storm in a teacup to be honest, but it wouldn't have done any harm to announce that some of the shots were artificial constructs.
 
Hope you girls realize that if the Republican/Tea party/bible thumper crowd have their way and PBS is killed off, the hunt for the Megalodon/ mermaid/ ancient alien nazi faith healers will be what passes for SCIENCE TV.
 
commandlinegamer said:
...it wouldn't have done any harm to announce that some of the shots were artificial constructs.
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Frozen Planet: BBC denies misleading fans

"It's not falsehood and we don't keep it secret either," said Sir David...

Media regulator Ofcom said they have received "fewer than a handful" of complaints about Frozen Planet.
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ETA: I'm pretty sure that they used bait for episodes shown in "Planet Earth". I'm talking about the frozen carcasses which attracted Wolverine and also for the Amur Leopard.
 
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