Conspiracy galore and recycled sensationalism

Someone recommended me the program Brass Tacks from TV One. This program has been on TV for some time but I did not get the chance to see it. Finally I saw a number of them on the Google Video and Youtube and I was not impressed as much as I was supposed to be. No doubt that the information being shared in the program is engaging and like all suspense and spy novels the stories are always exciting. But being exciting and engaging is not enough for it to be true.

Conspiracy theorists are abundant and I appreciate if they come up with a new and unique story, unfortunately on our channels there is more prevalence of sensationalist and recycled stories from what others have already produced. The problem with conspiracy stories is the simple question, what if the conspiracy story is itself a conspiracy? They are exposing the secret stories from the plan of the Zionists to UFOs to people not landing on the moon.

I would have appreciated more if the presenter Mr Zaid Hamid, apparently security expert of some sort, maintained a historical and scholarly attitude to the topics he was explaining rather than being sensationalist and evoking the sentiments of the public using religion and nationalistic feelings. That is why I prefer group discussions on public topics rather than individual ranting on secret stuff, which can ultimately be not verified because it is "secret". Interpretation is of course the game of the individual, that is why this program consists of a naive lady and self-proclaimed expert, rather than a public group of recognizable experts where anything put forward could be questioned in front of the public making sure that personal nonsense is not imposed on the public.

There are books full of all this stuff and they are the tasty fodder of the public mind. Interestingly I saw a number of documentaries recently including:

Zeitgest The Movie

Endgame: The Blueprint for Global Enslavement

America: Freedom to Facism

Now after going through these documentaries first and then looking at the Brass Tacks program, I did not have to make any effort to see how our security expert recycled the stuff. I don't say that whatever he is saying is wrong but the program is mixing right and wrong and verified and unverified information being told through the mouth of one person being televised as an entertainment program, rather than a serious public discussion. I hope we raise our level of programming a bit and if there is one advice I can give to Mr Zaid is that he should avoid feeding on the religious and nationalist emotions of the people and keep it to a factual level and mention what is verifiable and what is not. Alas, that does not create a program as engaging as it is. If TV One can make one improvement to this program that would be to bring two or three more "neutral" experts on the table so that things could be cross question at the very least.