It’s no secret that we’ve produced quite a bit of critical commentary regarding Discovery Communications (whose properties include Shark Week, Animal Planet, TLC, and many others) over the years. This Shark Week, we’re seeing a massive spike in interest around their less-than-factual productions. Here, for your convenience, is a quick roundup of articles we’ve written about misleading, deceptive, and dangerous shows produced by Discovery Communications.

The Big Three:

• Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary
• Megalodon: the New Evidence is a fake documentary
• Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine is a fake documentary

Other criticisms:

• It’s not about the Mermaids: Animal Planet’s track record of fabricated reality
• Anti-shark stereotypes in “River Monsters”
• Mermaids do not exist, and five other important things people should, but do not, know about the ocean
• We know what the Bloop is and it’s not mermaids
• The Trouble with Teacup Pigs

Posted on other sites:

• Shark Week Lied to Scientists to Get Them to Appear in “Documentaries”
• Experts: Shark Week’s Zombie Sharks Harasses Animals

You might wonder why we bother doing this. It’s certainly not for the glory or the thrill of moderating thousands of hateful comments or the actual violent threats. It’s because, believe it or not, we love Discovery Communications. We love Shark Week. We love Mythbusters. We love the crazy, goofy, pumpkin chuckin’ shows. Hell, I even enjoyed Mermaids (what I don’t enjoy is what Mermaids does to the state of ocean literacy). Discovery has an audience far larger than any we could hope to achieve at Southern Fried Science and it has the potential to educate and entertain. We’re not trying to bring down it down, we’re trying to raise it up. When Discovery is good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it’s the worst.

So as long as Discovery is spitting out garbage, we’ll be right here shoving it back in their faces. But when they make shows truly excellent shows like their deep-sea shark special Alien Sharks, we’ll be right there with them, too.