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Coal Mining Reality TV Show to Premiere on Spike TV

The series will premiere in April, 2011.

West Virginia coal mining is coming to cable TV.

Spike TV announced they are developing a new series about mining, premiering in April, 2011 with 10 episodes.

The cable network will be shooting the show in West Virginia's southern coal fields.

The show will follow over 40 miners on the dangerous adventures involved in coal ming.

It will be in the same style as the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.

That should be interesting! I think it will bring alot of needed and deserved attention to the Miners and mining industry!

leecoukfan Wrote:That should be interesting! I think it will bring alot of needed and deserved attention to the Miners and mining industry!

I hope your right, but I wouldn't bet on it. These Hollywood/Environmentalist types feel the same way about coal mining as they do about people from Appalachian. We all know how they protray Appalachia on TV and in the movies.

Old School Wrote:I hope your right, but I wouldn't bet on it. These Hollywood/Environmentalist types feel the same way about coal mining as they do about people from Appalachian. We all know how they protray Appalachia on TV and in the movies.

:Thumbs: I agree, Old School. This is not good news for Appalachia or the coal industry. Coal mining is a relatively dangerous occupation but I would not describe the normal day in the life of a coal miner as an adventure.

The mining cycle is pretty monotonous, so that means Hollywood writers will probably be looking for side stories to reinforce their stereotypes of coal miners and other people who live in the mountains.

Exactly Hoot. Mining isn't near as dangerous as crab fishing like on Deadliest Catch, and like you said it gets boring fast. I just hope they don't make this region look like a bunch of toothless retards, but I'm afraid that's probably what's going to happen.

vundy33 Wrote:Exactly Hoot. Mining isn't near as dangerous as crab fishing like on Deadliest Catch, and like you said it gets boring fast. I just hope they don't make this region look like a bunch of toothless retards, but I'm afraid that's probably what's going to happen.

Check out the picture below that accompanies Mining Reality Show 'Coal' Coming To Spike TV, which appears on the Huffington Post web site. In Hollywood circles, apparently little has changed in the mining industry since the dawn of the Industrial Age.

The miner has an electric cap light instead of a carbide lamp but he is still armed with his trusty pick, which he undoubtedly uses to dig tunnels through the coal. I wonder where the ponies are kept that they use to pull carloads of coal out of the mine? Maybe the men just tote the coal out of the mine on their backs, using burlap sacks.

[Image: s-MINING-large.jpg]

Here are a couple of more photos with links to the articles promoting the new series with which they appear. The photos that I have linked actually appear on multiple web sites promoting the new series. One think that I am dead certain of is that the new reality show will feature lots of white men with black faces.

The media does not like showing clean, articulate coal miners. If miners come out of the mine with a clean face, you can bet that the director will have some coal dust handy. Of course, what coal miner does not want to light up a Marlboro after putting in a 12 hour shift in a mine tunnel.?

("Tunnel" is not a term commonly used in mining but the media usually dumbs down its reporting or they are too lazy to learn about the industry themselves. In coal mining lingo, a "tunnel" is generally referred to as an entry and sometimes as a "room" or a "drift." Hard rock mining has its own jargon to describe mine structures.)

The promo material for this series says that the show will be showing traditional mine shaft operations but if the mine has only 24 employees, it seems unlikely that there will be a shaft mine featured. Shaft mines require a lot of capital investment and usually employ far more people than drift mines. Drift mines use horizontal entries to access coal seams that are accessible from the surface, as opposed to vertical shafts.

Maybe this will be the first show on coal mining that will actually try to portray the industry accurately, but I am not optimistic.

Spike TV Greenlights Coal-Mining Reality Series

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The 2012 Report: Spike TV Announces Coal Mining Reality Show

[Image: coal_miner.jpg]

Old School Wrote:I hope your right, but I wouldn't bet on it. These Hollywood/Environmentalist types feel the same way about coal mining as they do about people from Appalachian. We all know how they portray Appalachia on TV and in the movies.

Yeah, you make a very good point!

Hoot, from the first link you posted in your last post, this series doesn't look like it's going to turn out bad. The company that is producing this series is the same company that produced Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men. Those turned out pretty good. Let's hope this is the same.

Edit: I just read the second article you posted and I really want to find the idiot that wrote it and punch them in the face.

vundy33 Wrote:Hoot, from the first link you posted in your last post, this series doesn't look like it's going to turn out bad. The company that is producing this series is the same company that produced Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men. Those turned out pretty good. Let's hope this is the same.

Edit: I just read the second article you posted and I really want to find the idiot that wrote it and punch them in the face.

My problem is not with the linked articles themselves, it is with the type of images that the media always select to go along their articles. White miners whose faces are covered with coal dust, often with a cigarette hanging from their mouths - that is a typical coal miner according to Hollywood. If there is no cigarette featured in the picture, then as Old School mentioned, the miner is often portrayed with a toothless smile.

The same thing happens when the media does stories on surface mining. Photos from the 1960s are often selected to tell the story of the environmental damage done by surface mining in the 21st Century. A few of those photos have probably been published dozens of times over the years alongside unrelated articles and op-ed pieces.

When the national media decides to do stories on the mining industry, they usually go to the anti-mining groups for direction. They have a narrative to tell and they almost never attempt to produce a product with any fairness or balance.