Hot News: Shark Week is once again making things up

It's time yet again for 'Shark Week' at the Discovery Channel, that magical time of year when shark scientists tear their hair out over all the misleading claims about sharks that get splashed on TV.

Shark week just makes stuff up - and edits the interviews of experts to make it seem like they agree

Case in point: This past Sunday, the Discovery Channel ran a documentary called 'Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine' about a 35-foot-long great white shark the size of a sub that supposedly attacked people off the coast of South Africa.

Surprise! None of this was real. As zoologist Michelle Wciesel notes at Southern Fried Science, the submarine shark in South Africa was an urban legend started by journalists in the 1970s who were trying to fool a gullible public. But the Discovery Channel didn't debunk the myth - instead, they came up with computer-generated images and interviewed fake experts with fake names (like 'Conrad Manus') about the fake submarine shark.

The Discovery Channel did, however, add

It's time yet again for 'Shark Week' at the Discovery Channel, that magical time of year when shark scientists tear their hair out over all the misleading claims about sharks that get splashed on TV. Shark week just makes stuff up - and edits the interviews of experts to make it seem like they agree

Case in point: This past Sunday, the Discovery Channel ran a documentary called 'Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine' about a 35-foot-long great white shark the size of a sub that supposedly attacked people off the coast of South Africa.

Surprise! None of this was real. As zoologist Michelle Wciesel notes at Southern Fried Science, the submarine shark in South Africa was an urban legend started by journalists in the 1970s who were trying to fool a gullible public. But the Discovery Channel didn't debunk the myth - instead, they came up with computer-generated images and interviewed fake experts with fake names (like 'Conrad Manus') about the fake submarine shark.

The Discovery Channel did, however, add this odd disclaimer on its submarine shark documentary: 'Its existence is highly controversial. Events have been dramatized, but many believe Submarine exists to this day.' It's all made up, but eh, there are some people who believe it, so who can say?

This is hardly the first time the Discovery Channel has conjured facts about sharks out of thin air. Last year's Shark Week featured a documentary called 'Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives,' which claimed a giant shark that's been extinct for millennia is now lurking in the oceans, ready to attack. This, too, was completely bogus .

What's bizarre is that some of these documentaries feature actual shark scientists. How on earth does that happen? As it turns out, there's an answer - over at io9, David Shiffman, a PhD student studying sharks at the University of Miami, reveals that Discovery Channel producers flat-out mislead many of the experts they interview.

One shark expert, Jonathan Davis, took a Discovery Channel crew to go see sharks in Louisiana back in 2013. The producers never told Davis what the show would actually be about, despite his repeated questions. He was later appalled to see that his interview was featured on a documentary called 'Voodoo Shark' about a mythical monster that lived in the bayous.

'In reality, Davis was barely asked about the voodoo shark at all,' Shiffman writes. 'His answers from unrelated questions were edited together to make it seem like he believed in its existence and was searching for it.'

So there you go. There are some good shows on Shark Week, but there's a surprising amount of total nonsense. The Discovery Channel claims that the event is great at drumming up public interest about sharks. And that's probably true! But it's hard to see why they have to make things up. Real-life sharks are extremely interesting. Why not focus on them? Further reading:

Craig Pittman of the Tampa Bay Times wrote an excellent profile of 29-year-old grad student David Shiffman, who tweets at @WhySharksMatter and has made it his personal mission to expose the falsities of Shark Week. Back in 2012, Juliet Eilperin wrote a very nice history of Shark Week for the Washington Post. Despite the often-simplistic claims, the event still has plenty of defenders among conservationists.

Post By http://www.vox.com/2014/8/11/5991961/shark-week-is-once-again-making-things-up