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When TV and media get facts wrong

Owen Bawn

Garden party cupcake scented
Perhaps it's the old social studies teacher in me, but when I'm watching a TV show and they get a fact wrong and I have no way to text or tweet at them to correct them I get frustrated.

Just this past weekend I was enjoying the 'New York State' episode of "Aerial America" on the Smithsonian Channel. It's always a good watch. But then the speaker said that "The Genessee River is the longest river to flow to the north in the western hemisphere." My day was ruined. Why just in the USA the Willamette, Fox, and probably other rivers longer than the Genessee flow north. And how about the Magdalena in Colombia? Nearly 1000 miles. Finally, what about the Mackenzie? It's about 1100 miles long- and the Athabasca, which eventually feeds the Mackenzie is about 800 miles long. AND THEY ALL FLOW NORTH.

I feel better. Please feel free to correct TV and media mistakes in the thread below.
 
Perhaps it's the old social studies teacher in me, but when I'm watching a TV show and they get a fact wrong and I have no way to text or tweet at them to correct them I get frustrated.

Just this past weekend I was enjoying the 'New York State' episode of "Aerial America" on the Smithsonian Channel. It's always a good watch. But then the speaker said that "The Genessee River is the longest river to flow to the north in the western hemisphere." My day was ruined. Why just in the USA the Willamette, Fox, and probably other rivers longer than the Genessee flow north. And how about the Magdalena in Colombia? Nearly 1000 miles. Finally, what about the Mackenzie? It's about 1100 miles long- and the Athabasca, which eventually feeds the Mackenzie is about 800 miles long. AND THEY ALL FLOW NORTH.

I feel better. Please feel free to correct TV and media mistakes in the thread below.

I'd be more surprised if TV shows/media got their facts right. 😄
 
Genessee is good beer, I am told.

My go-to cheap beer in college..."smooth like a lager, crisp like an ale."

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Owen Bawn

Garden party cupcake scented
The Athabasca Glacier is a massive icefield that straddles the continental divide along the Alberta-British Columbia border. It is unique in that it is the source of 3 rivers that each spills into a different ocean- the Athabasca River flows north, becomes the Mackenzie at Great Slave Lake, and empties into the Arctic. The Columbia flows from the glacier down the western side of the divide, through British Columbia and over the border into Washington state, USA, where it ends at the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan River flows down the eastern slope of the continental divide, across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, eventually flowing out of Lake Winnipeg as the Nelson River and into Hudson's Bay and the Atlantic.

So on my honeymoon I wanted to make my mark on natural history by standing on this magical glacier and peeing in a circle so that 10,000 years from now my peepee would melt and drain into all 3 oceans. But never having been on a glacier before, I hadn't considered the fact that there is no privacy on an open icefield with snowcats full of Japanese tourists snapping photos of everything that moved. And I was blessed with the good sense to stay clear of dangerous crevasses and other places where I might have had a wee piddle without being observed. So, alas, my dream remains unfulfilled.
 
They play for the camera. When I was studying abroad in France, the prof told of being in Iraq during the Gulf War, and he recounted the story of a lady being approached by a "news" crew. She bent down, took some dirt, rubbed it on her face, messed up her hair a bit, gave a breathless and angry interview, and when they were done, she fixed her hair, wiped the dirt from her face and went on her merry way. I respect the old Soviet citizens because they at least acknowledged Pravda was propaganda. Our citizens seem to believe everything they read and see.
 
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