Tags: Television
By Alexander Villafania
PASAY CITY, METRO MANILA — Among all the beats that a journalist can cover, science and history may be one of the hardest. Of course, it does not directly deal with life-threatening situations but the difficulty lies in making sense of the information and making it understandable to the audience.
And yet from time to time, science journalists do encounter life-threatening incidences, be it in the form of an accident or with the local culture. Few journalists have faced these kinds of difficulties and one of them is British explorer and journalist Oliver Steeds.
Steeds, known for his work in news network Al Jazeera, was in the Philippines last week to promote his latest show on Discovery Channel titled Solving History. He also met with several journalists and bloggers to share his experience, the physical and mental rigors of going finding after the truth of history’s biggest mysteries.
In his explorations, Steeds stressed the value of doing research and planning ahead first in order to find the best methods to get to a story. While he notes that the majority of his work is based on material already available, he still aims to draw conclusions from his own research.
“I found in my own research that many materials are rubbish. But that’s my own interpretation of things. My own work does not reflect the absolute truth and other people can draw their own conclusions. In fact, I invite people to find out for themselves and prove that I may also be wrong,” Steeds said.
But more than just finding out the truth, Steeds stressed the importance of understanding and sticking to the rules of the local culture where he is doing his research. This puts him in a perspective where people have to abide by these laws that were essential to the creation of the people’s history.
Steeds gives a new perspective into events and artifacts by retracing the historical routes and processes. He also attempts to break into local taboos to experience and culture and meet with shady characters who have first-hand knowledge to finding key aspects of a historical artifact.
Among the stories that Steeds focused on his new show are the Ark of the Covenant, the Nazca Lines in Peru, the alleged city of gold El Dorado, the sunken city of Atlantis, and mummies collected by Adolf Hitler.
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