Am I right to think the point of CBC's Doc Zone

[james_davis_nicoll]

Is to present the most alarming case for a given set of facts?

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

And trigger a lot of arguments. Thus do they avert irrelevance.

I consider this a good thing.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

The point of CBC's Doc Zone is to get the best ratings it can. You probably get better results with flesh-eating bacteria than with the intricacies of literary theory.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

You speak, of course, of the Yellowstone Caldera documentary?

I thought it was interesting, but that's because it pointed up something that I hadn't known about.

It did err on the side of (POTENTIAL) DOOM, but I suspect an hour of them saying, "Well, the error bars are such and such, and the eruption is only posited, so no need to worry," does have the unfortunate effect of not putting bums in the seats and eyeballs toward the screen.

And I think that's a substantial part of what they're about--if they could make goldfish into a ratings bonanza, I think they would.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I loved the part where they illustrated a discussion of geology with a clip of the Sun.

[bwross.livejournal.com]

The one about how Canadians are losing their love of winter wasn't alarmist, but that's a pretty hard topic to do that with. My impression of it was jealousy over the Scandinavians with their heated sidewalks... it certainly wasn't concern that Canadians might be losing our winter cred.