Fora hike? Or for a reality TV programme? 
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To be clear, it has always been that. There was never a more noble beginning wherein realty TV was somehow less rigged and edited. It’s scripted TV without actors, that’s all. It was invented during a big SAG strike and once the networks realized how cheap it is to make and how much people like it, well, the rest is history.
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They picked PHX in summer to do a hike for a reality TV show. Brilliant.
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I’m sure that they got great footage of the rescue, so that’s only fair. (But who said life was fair?)
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I know what you are saying re “reality TV” but once upon a time straight fly-on-the-wall documentaries (no intervention, observing real life events/activities) were also reality TV
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Thing is, folk from TN and AL almost certainly won’t recognize the symptoms of heat stress in AZ. Hint: “it’s a dry heat” is not just a punchline, it’s a serious warning. In most of the USA, you know you’re overheating when you’re dripping sweat. In an Arizona June, the sweat evaporates so fast your clothes never even get damp as your core temperature heads for 40 degrees and beyond. Of course, by that point your judgment (which, naming no names, might not have been terribly reliable to begin with) is long-since in shambles, much as with hypothermia.
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Documentaries still exist and were never called “reality TV”. I’m not sure what you mean? Do you have an example?
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In retrospect, there were documentaries that could now also be considered “reality” TV. This is the most famous one.
A lot of documentary formats and subject matter have also been appropriated and twisted by “reality” TV producers over the decades.
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They were filming their own reality show - no film company involved.
What @gracchus said.
Fly-on-the-wall was one subset of the documentary genre. Gracchus gave a good example (and thanks for saving me the trouble of researching to find one myself - but several are here).
The difference is that what has become known as “reality TV” today is scripted, manipulated, entirely structured and designed for sensationalism. I think Big Brother really started it, or made TV people realise it was a cheap ratings magnet.
Before that, fly-on-the-wall reality TV was things like following a real ambulance crew around or spending a year in a particular factory, and so on.
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The fifth rider. LOL! Thanks, I now know what my next drawing will be. With proper credit of course.
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They just missed their chance to do it Blair Witch Project style.
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This format never went away though. There are shows like Carrier, for example. I think the term that developed for this is “docuseries”. It was never as popular as what became Reality TV with Survivor and Big Brother, but I think you’re just retroactively labelling that other stuff “reality TV” to make a point about the world getting worse. It didn’t, it just got bigger. One format did not kill the other. The original format was never very popular, which is why mainly PBS does it (and they still do from time to time).
Also don’t forget that all documentary formats still have an agenda. Editorial choices are made to tell a story that the producers want to tell, no matter what. That story is usually benign for more cerebral topics, but it’s always there. At the more benign end, this agenda might be “elephants are endangered”, or at the less benign end you have things like Super Size Me or Bowling For Columbine. In the latter, the facts get very loose indeed to make the point they want to make. There’s no such thing as a pure “fly on the wall” (which you really really didn’t need to link for me) because that would not be at all compelling to watch. All editing is a story choice.
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Lethal-level ignorance. They are very lucky no one died. Climate change is going to make this happen much more often, and in environments where people don’t have experience with extreme heat.
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There was a young family that dropped dead on a hike in California. You’re right, there will be a lot more. We’re all canaries in the coal mine.
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…suitable for Camelback Mountain…
Somehow I can see this rolled into some advertising for Camelbak, on what not to do.
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Most “legitimate” projects are listed in the IMDB, especially when a project is in production. There is no listing for Good Girls Gone God. 
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Although American Family was, as far as I know, genuine documentary. None of the artificial elements added to the situation to hype up the drama, as we find in what we now call reality TV. (Admittedly the presence of the cameras must have affected people’s behavior. See Albert Brooks’ pioneering documentary Real Life.)
ETA:
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Yep. Heat stress illness can set in at temperature’s way lower than people think. I speak from experience. Years ago, when I was much younger, I developed heat exhaustion in mid 80’s temperatures with high humidity. I did everything right, hydrated, clothing for the environment, etc., except when I felt the symptoms start, I tried to brush it off. Luckily my wife, who is much smarter and wiser than I, saw the road I was going down and stopped me from working, and provided the right aid.
I know my limits now and don’t push.
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I got heat exhaustion maybe heat stroke on a 4-H geology trip when I was little. Man, I felt weird.
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