The original post posits that Moneymaker is hurting the BF field.
I think you guys are over-analyzing here... the exposure Matt gets is with the uninformed public via his show. The average viewer doesn't know much about the details, they tune in for the novelty of the subject. They have no idea about the details and are not interested in the minute details. We're talking very short attention span with little focus.
You guys (we) are hardcore groupies, we know all about it and have spent years analyzing the subject matter. So you nit-pick and you are correct sometimes about inaccuracies, errors and ommitions. But realize, the average viewer doesn't know and doesn't care... that's who Matt is targeting.
So, I disagree he's hurting the field, if anything, he's helping to spread the idea that BF exists.
As evidence, I submit that when Finding Bigfoot is on the air, BFF traffic increases by about 30%. When the season ends, traffic decreases. Those are hard numbers and prove that Matt is helping the field by generating interest, no question about it.
Also, it seems that many people bash the BFRO for whatever reason, but we all use their database for many purposes, yet Matt gets no credit for keeping that going. The BFRO also produces researchers. Many researchers here got interested because of the BFRO, including your truly.
It's not right.