Television documentary loves history but how true is the reverse, among professional historians? At one extreme, television is seen as going for the good story at the expense of the facts or leaving out nuances that would modulate the reception of facts in important ways. From this perspective, television is a broad-brush medium and therefore dangerous for history because 'broad-brush' might shade into 'superficial'. Television history, at its worst, it is thought, peddles platitudes, confirms prejudices and encourages lazy, sentimental accounts of the past in which today's perceptions and preoccupations are allowed to dictate the interpretation of yesterday's events. It is not truth which is pursued but the ratings. Graham