NBC set its weekend nightly news anchor Lester Holt on the case, but his 2012 report won’t be on NBC; rather they’ve relegated it to cable network Syfy (formerly the SciFi Channel). It airs tonight at 9 PM Eastern and the main interviewees are John Major Jenkins (safe and sensible choice); geologist Robert Schoch (surprising choice as he’s not really a 2012 researcher, although his work on dating the Sphinx was a major breakthrough in legitimizing theories about a much older date for its creation); and Richard Hoagland (the wacky choice that might help ratings but probably kept the show off NBC proper). Syfy 2012 site here.

We’ll be looking at the major media for the most unusual takes on 2012 all week, so please check back here for more every day or two.

Oh, and there was one quite articulate article in British broadsheet (read ‘upmarket’) newspaper The Telegraph this weekend that focuses on the modern Maya and quotes me at the end:

With so many wild claims and theories running rife on the Internet, Gary Baddeley, a British writer and producer who runs the New York-based Disinformation Company, produced the documentary 2012: Science or Superstition.
“There can certainly be harm in scaring people that the world is going to end and we’re trying to allay some of those fears by explaining what the focus on 2012 is about,” he said. And for the Maya, he believes that perhaps the year can bring opportunity rather than curse.
“To the modern Maya in the Guatemala highlands, 2012 means very little and they have not used the Long Count calendar for a long time,” he said. “But perhaps they can turn this to their advantage by encouraging understanding of their culture and bringing in some much-needed tourist dollars. It could help put them back on the map.”

In the Cottonwood Ballroom at the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the New York neo-shaman Daniel Pinchbeck sipped Fiji water and prepared to discuss the end of the world. The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, and Pinchbeck has built a multiplatform enterprise on the notion that something drastic will happen on that date—maybe.

But 2012 is also the name of a big-budget disaster movie based on the Mayan scenarios depicted in Pinchbeck’s books. To promote the film, Sony Pictures sponsored this junket, featuring the stars and director of the movie; three 2012ologists, including Pinchbeck; and a tour of Yellowstone National Park, which the film destroys.

But nobody in the Four Seasons seemed to believe that the end was near, least of all Pinchbeck, who was once described in the Times as “equal parts Jesuit and Jim Morrison” and is known for ingesting psychedelics in the Amazon. “I’m not a fundamentalist about the date,” Pinchbeck said, and his fellow 2012ologists nodded in agreement. Yet all three continue to publish alarmist books with 2012 in the title.

“Two thousand twelve is this date, you know, which there’s a lot of ideas about,” said the director Roland Emmerich, who demolishes the White House for the second time in his career with this movie. “And we chose the destructive one.”

After giving PowerPoint presentations, the 2012ologists were dabbed with makeup and subjected to a gauntlet of five-minute television interviews. They were asked countless variations on the same question: “Will the world really end in 2012?” The 2012ologists answered, patiently at first, “Actually, the Maya never predicted any doomsday scenario” …

Daniel’s best line was right at the end of the article:

When I asked the 2012ologists how they planned to sell books in 2013, Pinchbeck glanced up from his screen and offered, with a glint of hope, “1984 still sells well.”

I hope so too!