Topic ID #13954 - posted 9/21/2011 3:43 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
An Archaeologist Watches the History Channel and Questions the Part About the Aliens
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
An Archaeologist Watches the History Channel and Questions the Part About the Aliens
Alex Knapp Contributor
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
One of the archaeologists at Bad Archaeology lambastes the History Channel for its series Ancient Aliens and treating its nonsense as though it were fact.
I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens. If it were an entertainment programme, I’d have fewer worries (although it would still make me cross); it is the implied authority of the channel (‘The History Channel’, not just any old ‘History Channel’) that makes the broadcast of this series so potentially damaging, as we saw in the reaction of the forum poster quoted above. A channel that is making claims for its authoritative status, which offers educational resources, has a responsibility not to mislead its viewers (no doubt its executives think of them as ‘customers’). That responsibility is one that all makers and broadcasters of supposedly factual television have, but one that few of them take seriously: the responsibility to check facts.
Do read the whole post, as it’s a nice one-stop shop for debunking the “ancient astronaut” nonsense that’s been peddled around for as long as I can remember. And I’m in agreement that ideally, the History Channel shouldn’t run stuff like this and instead devote itself to more stuff about, say, history. At least, the parts of history that don’t involve alien visitors.
Read more here.
Alex Knapp Contributor
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
One of the archaeologists at Bad Archaeology lambastes the History Channel for its series Ancient Aliens and treating its nonsense as though it were fact.
I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens. If it were an entertainment programme, I’d have fewer worries (although it would still make me cross); it is the implied authority of the channel (‘The History Channel’, not just any old ‘History Channel’) that makes the broadcast of this series so potentially damaging, as we saw in the reaction of the forum poster quoted above. A channel that is making claims for its authoritative status, which offers educational resources, has a responsibility not to mislead its viewers (no doubt its executives think of them as ‘customers’). That responsibility is one that all makers and broadcasters of supposedly factual television have, but one that few of them take seriously: the responsibility to check facts.
Do read the whole post, as it’s a nice one-stop shop for debunking the “ancient astronaut” nonsense that’s been peddled around for as long as I can remember. And I’m in agreement that ideally, the History Channel shouldn’t run stuff like this and instead devote itself to more stuff about, say, history. At least, the parts of history that don’t involve alien visitors.
Read more here.
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