Crocodile Hunter Killed By The Discovery Channel

Jason Calacanis of Weblogs, Inc and Netscape.com posted an interesting piece on his blog titled “The Discovery Channel Killed Steve Irwin“. An interesting read, he puts the blame for Irwin’s death squarely on the Discovery Channel and its lust for ratings, pushing people to perform more dangerous stunts to get on television. Aside from Irwin, he also references Dave Salmoni who starring in such Discovery Channel programs as “Sharks: Are they Hunting Us” and “Into the Lions Den”.

While I agree with his point that the Discovery Channel audience is so desensitized to danger that they keep pushing their shows to be more dangerous, I don’t think it applies to this particular incident. In an article on CNN.com, Irwin’s manager John Stainton explained that Irwin’s death was an accident and they weren’t filming an Animal Planet documentary, but instead Steve was exploring and explaining coral for a kids show he was working on.

Bad weather for the past few days had made it impossible to proceed with a planned taping for the Animal Planet channel, so Irwin instead chose Monday to shoot “a couple of soft stories for a new TV show we’re doing,” Stainton said.

“He and the underwater cameraman went out to do some pieces on the reef and coral and stuff good for the kids’ show and, unfortunately, he came out over the top of a stingray that was buried in the sand and the barb went up and hit him in the chest.”

So Steve Irwin died not jumping into the jaws of danger, but in a freak accident while filming a childrens show. This wasn’t a case of Irwin pushing the limit and putting his life in mortal danger. This was Irwin not being aware of the Stingray hidden under the sand, and the animal following it’s instincts and defending itself from what it perceived to be danger. So while I agree that the Discovery Channel is pushing the danger envelope, I think it is inappropriate to assign any sort of blame to an accident like this. It was a horrible and tragic accident and Steve Irwin will be missed.

Animal Planet will be running a Steve Irwin Tribute show tonight while John Stainton, Irwin’s manager and friend, will be on Larry King Live tonight on CNN to discuss the accident as well as the footage of the attack. It will be interesting to see what happens to that footage. How much money will the Discovery Channel throw at Irwin’s family to air the last footage of the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin?