So this morning I was sitting on the crapper reading reddit on my phone when I saw a post here about Ronald Reagan. I remembered I had seen an episode about Ronnie on drunk history (and not knowing how strict the subreddit is, my apologies gang), so I posted a reply without thinking anything of it.
The replies got me thinking, how accurate are the various 'history' shows (The History Channel has turned into something of a farce) we consume through various sources (TV specifically, though I'm inclined to include streaming media)
And in fact a follow up would be, are there any shows we CAN trust from an historically accurate view.
Thanks and again, apologies for posting without thinking.
Since I was the one that removed your original answer, I'll address the issue of accuracy at least as it relates to answers here.
As you know this is an academic subreddit where people come for well-sourced answers to their history questions. Because of this things like Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (which is entertaining) and Drunk Historians (which is very entertaining) are not acceptable as sources and are always removed as soon as they're seen by a mod. The reason for this is that, while entertaining, Carlin is not himself a historian and often overstates or oversimplifies things for the sake of good storytelling.
Likewise in Drunk History, even though the drunk people are historians, they're also not really addressing the history in an appropriate manner for the study of history. Their drunken tales are heavily editorialised. While they do sometimes correct misconceptions, they are also prone to creating more. Being intentionally drunk to the point of being almost incoherent doesn't make for responsible accounts of history. There's a reason why history conferences are not conducted at those levels of inebriation (though arguably some people might be closer to that then others).
Aside from that, Drunk History might be accurate on a superficial level, but even if everything said in a single episode were 100% true, it still lacks the depth to be considered an appropriate citation for a response on this sub.
There are other subreddits which have looser standards about what's allowed. Commenters and moderators alike are often accused of "taking ourselves too seriously" on /r/AskHistorians and how that makes us a "sad" group of people. The reality is that, while we have a lot of places like /r/history or other outlets for less-serious discussion, this subreddit has been intentionally designed to be much more academically oriented in its standards. A great many of the subscribers, flairs and moderators are actually working in academic fields related to history, but don't have many opportunities to talk about topics outside of their particular subfields. /r/AskHistorians gives us that opportunity while also allowing us to engage with the general public on topics that they're interested in.
Many of the regulars also come here specifically for the stricter moderation and higher standards, which is why you saw the voting pattern that you did. People are just less tolerant of things that break the rules of the subreddit.
We have other places on Reddit and elsewhere to talk about things less academically. This just isn't one of those places.
I don't know about the ones you reference and am technically not answering your question, but the PBS runs of Nova, Secrets of the Dead, and so forth are certainly very historically accurate, and I'd consider them entirely trustworthy. If you're hoping to learn from TV, it's harder to trust people producing it for profit, but that doesn't mean there aren't such shows of good quality out there.