MetaChat - Can't Trust The History Channel

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11 May 2007

Can't Trust The History Channel →[More:]
My father and I are sitting here watching a DVD-R'd episode of Mega Movers on the History Channel. We recorded this episode because it takes place in Rhode Island! Woo hoo! It's about moving a bridge up to it's final location for a new section of highway being built.

But my sense of pride slowly transformed to surprise and slight disgust as I listened to all the mistakes rack up.

The bridge is the (New) Providence River Bridge. The show keeps saying things along the lines of "Back in Providence, the move team blah blah blah." Um. No. The bridge is sitting in Quonset, where it was built. "The Bridge will then travel 15 miles up the Providence River..." What the heck? No, it's being transported up the Narragansett Bay. "Back in Newport..." WHAT THE HELL!? Newport is not anywhere NEAR anything involved with this project!! Why are you even mentioning it!?

This is the channel that taught me most of what I know about World War II, and they can't accurately report things happening this year? How can I possibly trust anything they say from now on?

I've made a custom map on Google Maps to show you how far off they are. Check it out.

I'm going to be writing them an email later today. I wonder how many similar mistakes they make in all of their other programs that people who are unfamiliar with the area would never know enough to notice.

post by: CitrusFreak12 at: 13:27 | 28 comments

It's Rhode Island, isn't everything there within a few blocks of everything else.

Though of the two times I've been there, I thought it was a decent enough place with a supermodel filled mall, and a decent club (my band was on tour).

It got the nickname "Rhode Island: Home of the Obvious Drug Deal" when we got lost and pretty much drove through a package exchange.

posted by drezdn 11 May | 13:54

I've made a custom map on Google Maps to show you how far off they are.

You are going to be funny as an old man. "There are too many states! Please remove three. P.S., I am not an elderly crank."

posted by Eideteker 11 May | 14:26

Oh man. I HATE that kind of thing. Considering the amount of money the show scripters and researchers were probably paid, there's no excuse for such sloppiness. Makes me sad.

posted by Miko 11 May | 14:28

Considering the amount of money the show scripters and researchers were probably paid

I don't know what production company makes that particular series, but usually the associate producers and researchers who do the grunt work on those kinds of programs work really long hours for a lot less money than you think (60-hour weeks making a MAXIMUM of maybe $800/wk-- usually a lot less-- with no overtime pay), with the added "advantage" of being disposable freelancers with no benefits and no job security.

I'm just saying.

posted by dersins 11 May | 14:39

Lies My History Channel Told Me

posted by Atom Eyes 11 May | 15:09

60-hour weeks making a MAXIMUM of maybe $800/wk

Still a bit more than I get paid for the same-lenght work week in public history. Of course, I do have benefits and a somewhat secure job.

It did occur to me after I posted that a lot of these series are probably produced by mills, as you describe, populated by poor graduate students gradually going blind over their JSTOR links.

I still cringe at it, though. Even if you're pressed for time, you might not get sophisticated with your analysis and you might not be thorough, but if you're trained in methods at all, you shouldn't get huge things like that just flat wrong. You'd have to be looking at a single source to misidentify an entire river in the state's first city, and not looking very hard.

posted by Miko 11 May | 15:36

MAXIMUM of maybe $800/wk

dude that's more than I get paid as a post-doc, 5 years post-PhD, who works longer hours. It's nothing to sniff at.

(sorry for the derail. I was just jealous)

posted by gaspode 11 May | 15:41

Yeah, but if you figure in the overtime it works out to less than twelve bucks an hour.

Which, if you're in NYC, as many of these TV sweatshops are, is less than you'd make temping.

Or working in Starbucks.

populated by poor graduate students gradually going blind over their JSTOR links.

They're not grad students, and they're not trained in any kind of methods, either.

The History Channel is not programmed by actual historians.

A few (a very, very few) of them might have journalism degrees, but, mostly, not so much.

Mostly it's the same people who also make the same"non-fiction" shows for Court TV, Discovery, the Food Network, etc. etc.

posted by dersins 11 May | 15:47

Oh how I do know that.

/lives in NYC; would make more at Starbucks.

posted by gaspode 11 May | 15:49

dude that's more than I get paid as a post-doc, 5 years post-PhD, who works longer hours. It's nothing to sniff at.

Do you have benefits? Do you have any assurance that your job will last more than 6 - 8 weeks?

Besides, I'm not saying these people are criminally underpaid, I'm just saying that they make less than you probably think.

posted by dersins 11 May | 15:50

*sigh* yes I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm well aware that my benefits and suchlike mean I effectively make much more than that. I don't want to start a competition of who gets the worst deal. It's them. Just wanted to bitch for a bit because I've had a stressful week. Sorry.

posted by gaspode 11 May | 16:07

I wanted to bitch just because I detest crappy history.

So now I will just shift my detestation to the editors and programming execs who just throw whatever up on the screen and call it History.

That channel lost me a long time ago, though. I can only take so many hours of black and white newsreel footage of destroyers and airplanes.

Give me The American Experience.

posted by Miko 11 May | 16:11

Ummmm... you're just now finding out you can't trust cable television? They don't provide documentation to their documentaries, so unlike print articles, there is no way to know what the sources are for their information. Some stuff is inaccurate, some is fiction.

Once it a while they get it right.

posted by Doohickie 11 May | 16:22

When The Sci-Fi Channel lied, nobody died.

posted by Atom Eyes 11 May | 16:36

you can't trust cable television

Oh, man.

Anyone want a gallon container of Oxi-Clean?

posted by Miko 11 May | 16:48

Ummmm... you're just now finding out you can't trust cable television?

Nah, I'm just particularly ticked because it's my dumb state.

posted by CitrusFreak12 11 May | 16:52

you can't trust cable television

Wait, so I don't want my MTV, and I never actually did? That explains a lot.

posted by box 11 May | 16:53

Yanno, that really is one small state. How long does it take to get from one side to the other (north to south, east to west). An hour, maybe? Can't be any more than two hours, tops, depending on traffic.

posted by deborah 11 May | 17:07

How long does it take to get from one side to the other (north to south, east to west).

Traffic can be horrible here, especially in Providence (hence the new highway and thus the bridge!). Normally takes 15-20 minutes to go from Warwick to Providence and vice versa. With rush hour traffic, it can take over an hour. Boo!

I'm not sure about from top to bottom. But Warwick is pretty much in the middle of the state, and it takes me about 40 minutes to get to Cumberland and 40 minutes to get to Kingston, I would venture a guess at an hour and a half from top to bottom.

There's a running joke here that for any trip over 15 minutes, we have to pack a lunch. Over 30, we have to book a room in a hotel. ;)

posted by CitrusFreak12 11 May | 18:23

Rhode Island may be small, but its beaches are gorgeous. Don't tell anyone or it'll get all expensive there too.

posted by Miko 11 May | 20:20

Don't tell anyone or it'll get all expensive there too.

One word: Newport.

posted by CitrusFreak12 11 May | 20:39

Well of course Newport. I'm talking about the entire rest of the state.

posted by Miko 11 May | 22:02

To clarify: RI west of the Newport/Jamestown/Narragansett area (and excepting Block) is the last part of coastal New England between the Gold Coast of connecticut and Portland, ME, where you can concievably purchase a modest house within walking distance of the ocean for under $250,000. Somehow it has remained relatively undiscovered and undeveloped. It won't stay that way long though.

posted by Miko 11 May | 22:06

a modest house within walking distance of the ocean for under $250,000

Please point me in the direction of said house. Because damned if I know where to find one.
You seem very familiar with RI, but perhaps not RI as of lately. We've had a bit of a housing bubble 'round these parts.

I pray it goes down within three years, or I won't be able to afford a house.

posted by CitrusFreak12 11 May | 22:09

Yes, well I lived in Stonington/Mystic CT until two and half years ago. It's right on the border and I spent a lot of time in the state, friends live there.

Good news for you, the market has already begun to decline - median sale price to $255K.

I'd recommend looking in the Westerly area (outside of Watch Hill, of course) or even Pawcatuck CT, right over the border. Here's a whole page of listings under $250K.

posted by Miko 11 May | 22:21

Woo! That's good news! Thanks!

And Watch Hill? Dannng. That's like... not even Rhode Island. CT can have it. :P

I'll keep it in mind though. Beggars can't be choosers.

posted by CitrusFreak12 11 May | 22:54

Yeah, the History Channel just buys stuff, but it comes from diverse places and they don't fact check it or anything. I know of some locally-related history videos that have been aired on "H", which weren't bad, but they were produced by a few people with an interest in their one topic and not a lot of academic history experience. The bar for "local historian" is not, I'm afraid, that great.

Even the better-produced stuff on some of these channels is awful hackery.

There was an SNL film a few years back that parodied the History Channel stuff, with all sorts of errors on the order of Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence, and at the end it says "Produced by Smith Valley Junior College AV Dept."

posted by stilicho 11 May | 22:57

he bar for "local historian" is not, I'm afraid, that great.

You can say that again.

posted by Miko 12 May | 12:41

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