The recent sad passing of naturalist and TV presenter Steve Irwin inevitably raises questions about how we produce television programmes about the natural world. The BBC spends vast amounts of our money on natural history programming, and the resulting multi-award-winning series, such as those by David Attenborough, enjoy impressive viewing figures - not just here in the UK but across the world. They are characterised by the very scientific approach of observing nature and keeping as much out of the way of natural life as possible: simply documenting what goes on.
It has been argued, however, that programmes of the style of Steve Irwin's are more popular than the Attenboroughs, and they definitely have a different set of criteria. Most important of all, in an Attenborough-style programme, the star is the bird of paradise, or the whale, or perhaps simply the majesty and grandeur of a mountain range; in a Steve Irwin programme there is no doubt that the star is Steve Irwin. In addition, while the Attenborough style is about observation, the Irwin style is about interactivity. It is just this approach of getting in amongst the creatures that made Irwin's name and was no doubt contributory to his death.
Although there is no doubt an overlap between the audiences for the two types of natural history programming, they by and large attract a different type of viewer. I have no objection to expanding awareness about the natural world and the current enormous threats to it, although I have misgivings about whether wrestling with it is the best approach.
Both types of programme include contrivances of one kind or another. Interacting with the animals will no doubt make them do things they would not otherwise have done, which makes for exciting - and dangerous - television. On the other hand, it is not possible for Attenborough's team to catch everything that goes on, for example, in telling the story of the life of the polar bear. The gestation and birth of a baby take place under the snow in a maternity den, and even with modern micro-cameras you can't go there. So instead, you film the birth in a zoo, and under current BBC Natural History editorial guidelines, you would say so in the commentary, too. The telephoto shots of the polar bear tracking across the snow, way too far away to be caught by any microphone, are dubbed just as footsteps would be in a movie: in this case by squeezing a silk stocking filled with custard powder. You grow an Amazonian pond lily in a cowshed outside Oxford so you can film it underwater. There is artifice in both approaches.
However today, the BBC guidelines prevent you from helping a predator catch its prey by making it easier for the predator to see, for example, and you are definitely not supposed to interfere - and as a result it's doubtful that the BBC could make Steve Irwin's style of programme should they want to.
Thus not only do we have the difference between observation of and participation in the world of nature; we also have a difference between recording actuality on the one hand - even if it needs some help to tell the full story - and making exciting and entertaining television on the other.
"Making exciting and entertaining television" has recently claimed another victim - Richard Hammond - though this time thankfully not fatally, and this raises another issue, namely whether or not it is acceptable in this modern age for presenters to take extreme risks for higher ratings. TV has got a good deal safer for ordinary participants since the death of a contestant on Noel Edmonds show in the 1980s, but presenters like Irwin and Hammond regularly risk their lives, latest in a long tradition of showmen who have done the same for their audiences in death-defying escapades.
Putting your life on the line is obviously part of the job for the news reporter, but should this be true for entertainment? And what of the impact on the audience? Does a Steve Irwin show encourage a few people to risk their lives unnecessarily, instigating encounters with potentially deadly wildlife? Does Top Gear's obsession with speed impact a significant number of viewers' driving behaviour?
One cannot help but share the misgivings expressed by Mark Lawson in a recent Guardian article about the difference between "shedding light on the world" in the case of journalism, versus "telly entertainments about crocodiles or dragsters - which generate no light but only heat", and agree that the latter are "certainly not worth the price of a life".
