[chiefs70]

Okay, I know better than to post this but I guess I have decided to open myself to friendly fire to say the moniker "the Hitler Channel" is off base. Do they cover a lot of topics concerning Nazi Germany? Yes. Why... because that is what people want to watch. Evil is more interesting than what we want to believe about human nature. At the same time I have seen quite the width and breadth of topics outside of WW2 on the History Channel which I found interesting and caused me to seek out more information via ordering books and chatting on other boards. Would we rather the History Channel cease to exist? I thought most of us enjoyed the Dogfights series - as an example - so we are happy to flush this down the pipes as well? I guess my major complaint is the natural inclination to criticise anything which is not perfect. Do I believe everything I see on THC? No, but I would rather watch most of their shows rather than what mainstream television offers. I guess that on balance I vote for the "Hitler Channel" over the American Idol and other programs but maybe I am missing other channels that are far better. Books are great and I love to read but sometimes I just want to veg with the tube THC is better than most alternatives.

Fire in the hole, I have cover.

(Never poke an airborne soldier with a stick as you may eat it later - have mercy my friend! )

[skysurfer808]

The History Channel does have some good programming, and despite my criticisms, I have to appreciate its contributions to general historical literacy. Still, I find it inexcusable when they are doing CGI animation not to get the proper airplane schemes right. I mean if diecast manufacturers doing actual hard products can go through some trouble to get it liveries and markings passably right, why can't the producers of a major television series. I may be tooting my own horn, but most aviation enthusiasts can do a better job then the majority of producers. This rot isn't just covered by TV, Aerospace Publishing, a major publishing house in the UK that put out the excellent but now defunct World Air Power Journal and Wings of Fame journals also did a book on American Warplanes of WW-2. The thing came out as a glossy paged lavishly illustrated tome, that had inaccuracies or ommisions on virtually every page. They got things wrong and ignored opportunities to get things right, despite using many standard reference photos and artwork. Part of my goal as a would be Aviation historian is to utilize sources to get things right. My efforts here linking photos and websites is an attempt to do this on behalf of this forum, and diecast manufacturers. I'm glad you all enjoy it, and am happy to get involved in various scraps...with accurate history being my ultimate goal.

Back to the history channel. I believe the fascination with the Third Reich has a lot to do with current events. The Nazis make great storybook villians...for evil images nothing beats an SS Officer in Black with the Death's Head on his cap. Evil is on the march around the world, and people are fascinated by its causes. To me, the greatest lession of all the isms of the 20th century is that when the rights of the individual are taken away, a System becomes irrevocably evil...because societies are made up of individuals and by taking away their basic human rights, you are taking away their humanity. This dehumanizing process can allow the manipulators of any system to commit murder on a mass scale. Stalin said it best....One death is a tragedy...a million just a statistic.

By the way, Stalin wins second prize for most deadly tyrant with 60 million plus deaths on his watch...including the persecution of the Kulaks, the Great Purges of the 1930s, qne Soviet deaths in WW-2, many of which could be attributed to him and his strategic blunders, not to mention standard Soviet diciplinary measures. Hitler is in third place with 40-50 million or so attributed to his actions. Yet we are trading with and actively purchasing products made in the nation whose dictator and political system are responsible for the most death's of any leader of the 20th Century....Chairman Mao's People's Republic of China...with an estimated 100 million deaths caused by the Civil War, Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution. Though today's People's Republic is a far cry from the insane 60s era Reds....the system is still intact...and an idealogical competitor of the "Free World." I don't consider it fearmongering to believe that if China can have one Nation and Two Systems vis a vis Taiwan, perhaps the rest of the wourld ought to consider One World...Two Systems to describe relations with the PRC. Yet how many documentaries do you see condeming the evils of communism, something most liberals seem reluctant to touch.

Skysurfer808

[Hoverbug]

Originally Posted by Epapazian

I happen to be in the media business, so I understand that the only way for the History or Military Channels to turn a profit is by buying super cheap programming and rerunning each installment hundreds of times. Still, I am amazed at the sloppy work of many of the documentary producers these channels rely on. For example, a review of the Battle of the Bulge starts off by telling us that Hitler stealthily assembled 175 divisions ( or some number of this magnitude) for his December 1944 assault.Huh? If that had happened we would have been driven into the English Channel. The visual support used in these programs is even less accurate. A piece on B-24 bombers treats us to footage of B-25s instead ( true, both planes had twin tails ); an episode about Germany's Tiger tanks shows us footage of Mark IV Panzers; a review of the ill-fated Dieppe raid shows the German's counterattacking with French light tanks, and so it goes. The underlying assumption of the cheapo documentary makers is that no one will notice. I think that they are wrong and such sloppy work reflects badly on the channels that air such programs. What do you guys think?

I have (regrettably) been involved in several History Channel productions and am pretty familiar with their business model. It is purely a money making enterprise these days. At least back in the days of the Discovery Wings production, the people that produced these things had a love for their subject. No more - now it is about churning out sausage for the lowest possible dollar. The producers I have worked with only choose their subjects because they know their market - i.e. there is an audience for Nazi stuff, so we get Nazi stuff ad nauseum. Accuracy gives way to sound bites. Expertise is only sought out to give the air of legitimacy to a production, but generally the soundbite trumps all, regardless of accuracy. If some yahoo loudmouth has a better soundbite than their historical consultants, they are going to use that instead. If the truth is less dramatic than the erroneous soundbite, they will use that instead. Also, if they don't get quite the right sound bite they are looking for because the facts don't support, they will "go down the ladder" until they find someone that will say it. I know of a certain aviation photographer who takes nice pictures but doesn't know squat about the nitty gritty of aviation history, but who often gets called on for documentary work because he spouts great (and usually outrageously wrong) soundbites.

The most appalling thing I have found is that errors do get pointed out to these guys, but because of the money required to reshoot or acquire the correct footage they'll let stand things that they know are wrong.

Regarding the comparison's to Wikipedia, I know for a fact that is exactly how much of their research is done. It used to be that when someone wanted to produce a documentary they would hire a researcher or team of researchers. No longer - now the producer (who is often the director) just goes online.

There is no History Channel ombudsman to uphold standards - it really is a race to the bottom.

I should note that History Channel is hardly alone in this and outside of some of the PBS and National Geographic productions, there is really very little in the way of productions with any sort of rigorous research or intellectual development behind it.

[bsmith13]

Thanks for your post, Hoverbug.

I am disheartened by what you wrote. The History Channel has such a wonderful opportunity to educate, and they blow it in favor of the fast buck. When they get something obvious wrong on a show where I have some previous knowledge, it makes me wonder how much of their other shows are similarly flawed. In short, their credibility suffers with me when they promote fallacies or inaccuracies.

[chiefs70]

I second your thoughts, Bsmith. When you spend all day being a skeptic at work it would be nice to settle into a bit of television which is reliable. Considering how many folks I know that never read a book but will watch TV 24/7 it is things like this which really spread disinformation.

[Hoverbug]

The sad thing is that the History Channel occaisonally gets lucky and buys something good. It's just all the garbage you have to sort through to get there. If you go back to the days when the original Wings documentaries were done, they weren't trying to fill up a 24/7 slate of spots - it was something that would be interspersed with other programing. These 24/7 operations create an incredible demand for programming - particularly cheap programming. Something that might have a bigger draw like Dogfights might generate a bit more investment because of the larger audience, but the routine stuff appears to get picked up viurtually no other consideration than cost. There are a few decent producers out there who can work in that climate, but they appear to be the exception and not the rule.

My absolute least favorite program at the moment is Weaponology on the Military Channel, which seems to average more than one obvious error of fact or misrepresentation a minute, not counting the wrong aircraft, etc. being shown when they're talking about something else.