Today’s History Channel programming includes Ax Men, Pawn Stars and Ice Road Truckers, shows about the American Northwest logging industry, arctic trucking operations and the items in a Las Vegas pawn shop, respectively.

Although entertaining, I don’t actually learn any valuable history after watching an episode, save for snippets about the respective industries and information about the items people pawn,

For me, it used to be fine that the History Channel had a couple of programs that didn’t actually engage history. The personalities of the truckers, loggers, and pawn operators are entertaining, and when compared to the other trash on television, it’s possible to find a lot worse. I can let it slide that the History Channel markets these shows on contemporary culture as its primary programs, instead of informative documentaries or groundbreaking research, until now.

The History Channel’s tendency to back away from actual history is fine when the topic is overweight truckers and the good ol’ boys in the pawn shop. But in the first script of a potential television miniseries over the Kennedy family, historically accurate, knowledgeable scenes are missing.

For starters, director Joel Surnow, creator of FOX’s “24” and outspoken conservative, defended his upcoming miniseries as a “dramatization,” implying that the historical errors that several prominent historians have identified in the script can be ignored.

Some of the alleged inaccuracies are dramatic conversations between President Kennedy and his advisor Theodore Sorensen. Sorensen says these conversations never occurred. Other details, such as the implication that President Kennedy first proposed the Berlin Wall, are simply made up, according to Kennedy scholars.

In one of many sexual references, the filming calls for a Secret Service agent to approach the president as he’s having sex with another woman. Scholars claim that negative portrayals such as this demonstrate Surnow’s right-wing political agenda in creating the film. These scholars are speaking out in a video by liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald cautioning people to be skeptical of the Surnow’s representation. When people tune into the History Channel, they assume that what they’re watching is historically accurate.

Now, these same people will watch “The Kennedys” and use it to refine their outlook on the Kennedy presidency and the other events of the 1960s—for the worse if Surnow keeps the historical errors in the series. The History Channel should not allow this miniseries to run unless Surnow drastically reforms his political attack job into an accurate representation of the Kennedy administration. Defending Kennedy’s presidency is not my intention here; I’d be saying the same thing if a left-wing filmmaker invented aspects of a conservative president’s life. While Kennedy did have several extramarital affairs, they should not be the defining element of his presidency.

If “The Kennedys” is any indication, looking past the politics and realizing that history should be treated with the utmost accuracy (especially from a program airing on the History Channel) is a concept losing precedence to entertainment.

— Boultinghouse is a sophomore from Girard in history and journalism.