The Discovery Channel, now available in over 400 million households worldwide, began life as a documentary channel. More recently the channel extended its remit into programs that, while hardly educational, are fairly harmless, such as reality TV dross.
However, its new populist approach has a much darker side. The channel has been busy broadcasting complete misinformation on some of the world’s already misunderstood top predators, stirring up fear and panic among its audience.
The channel has recently shown misleading, and at times completely inaccurate, “documentaries” on wolves and sharks, promoting the perception of these animals as terrible monsters that must be exterminated. These programs get lots of viewers, who walk away with minds full of rubbish.
With wolves being shot in their hundreds in the United States and a shark cull underway in Australia, the Discovery Channel must bear some responsibility for the impact its sensationalist “documentaries” are having on the conservation of endangered animals.
Tell the company to stop being the Propaganda Channel and go back to showing genuinely educational documentaries rather than nonsense.
We the undersigned ask that you immediately stop broadcasting inaccurate, misleading programs on sharks and wolves under the guise of documentaries. These sensationalist programs might get lots of viewers but they promote persecution of some of the world’s most threatened animals.
The movie Jaws played a significant role in encouraging persecution of the now endangered great white shark, and that presented itself as nothing more than the fiction it was. The impact of pseudo-documentaries can be far worse, because people believe they are factual.
Showing such material, which is essentially little better than propaganda, is incredibly irresponsible and not something we would expect from a company with the reputation of the Discovery Channel.
Please cease broadcasting such misinformation immediately.
Thank you for your attention.
