Me'linda:
 
I heartily agree with you about the role of even sensational reporting and
its ability to stir the imagination.  However...
 
When I was growing up, lets say 3rd-8th grades, I read a lot of archaeology.
 Whatever I could get my hands on in the Detroit Public Library.  And that
included a lot of standard, legimate literature, largely classical.  However,
for whatever reasons, I changed interests and didn't pursue it at more than a
casual level until my late 20's, when I went back to school with an Antho
major.
 
Now...  my guilty little secret is that one of the books that really piqued
my curiousity during that early (for me) academic experience was Barry Fell's
America B.C.  Imagine this, here's a Harvard professor documenting in great
detail all these fabulous foreign scripts in North America.  I mean, if a
Harvard Ph.D. is going to publish a major book documenting all these things,
they must be true, right?
 
Wrong...  As I was subsequently to learn, all Ph.D.'s were not created equal,
and a Ph.D. in marine biology (?) does not qualify Dr. Fell to discuss
Phoenecian texts, Ogam scripts, or anything else outside his area of
expertise.
 
Now my point is this ...  What if I were a more normal lay reader (viewer)
who was exposed to Fell, and had no way to critique either the content or
quality of the message?  This is the problem of sensationalist presentation
...  The public at large is essentially deprived of the right to know the
competing arguments.  If something is presented in print or TV media, the
public at large will give it credence (perhaps more credence than it is due).
 And this sort of disinformation does an incredible disservice to our
interests.
 
Therefore, I believe it falls on the professional/academic and/or responsible
avocational community to reinforce the presentation of meaningful
historical/archaeological discourse, and by the same token, to disparage the
presentation of garbage.  Fortunately, I believe we are moving in that
direction.
 
Bye.