On last night's episode of Screen Time, Erin Medley and I discussed – in a terribly joking fashion – the notion that some sort of new version of Fight Back! with David Horowitz ought to exist (the Fight Back! website says that they're working on one now, but that doesn't mean we can't talk more about the idea for such a show in general). It's an idea I'd like to expand on here today, in a far less joking fashion.
For those of you not in the know, Fight Back! with David Horowitz was a brilliant program where they tried their best to help consumers out. Whether someone was having trouble with the phone company, a car company, or simply wanted to know whether an advertisement for a product was actually truthful, Fight Back did its level best to find out.
The example I best remember is them testing padlocks. An advertisement for a padlock existed where they shot a padlock with a gun to show everyone how it stayed locked even after the bullet pierced it. As I recall, they tried it out themselves and tried out other padlocks to see if they could withstand a bullet as well. It was fun, it was informative, and about 20 years later I still remember it. What more could anyone want from a television show?
This type of reporting is still prevalent today. Local news at television stations all over the country currently do this sort of reporting – helping someone get money back from a contractor or a supermarket, that kind of thing. However, I honestly believe that it ought to be done on a national level on a regular basis (news magazines do occasionally do stories along these lines). Even with the advent of the Internet and customer reviews being available for anything and everything, there are still a ton of scams and falsities out there.
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