April 3rd, 1999
TV Network for Schools Creates Static; For-Profit Channel One's Programming to Be Focus of Senate Committee Hearing
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
At a time when Republican congressional leaders are shying away from social issues, religious conservatives and other activists have seized upon an unlikely target to highlight what they see as the insidious impact of modern culture on American youth: the for-profit Channel One Network.
New York-based Channel One, which features hip young anchors and an MTV-style sensibility, is beamed daily via satellite to 12,000 middle and high schools across the country. Many school administrators and teachers see it as an innovative vehicle to engage and educate children about current events.
But in the last few months, Channel One has become the latest front in the American culture wars, while offering a case study in social issue lobbying: Activists have been able to leverage their grass-roots influence to turn a little-noticed issue into a cause celebre, forcing both lawmakers and a sizable company to grapple with the fallout.
Many conservative activists—and at least one prominent liberal advocacy group—have mobilized against the network, complaining that it is a device to disseminate sexual messages and other harmful information to the nation’s children. Their pleas have been heard in Congress, where a committee is planning a hearing to investigate their claims.
Faced with such newfound scrutiny, Channel One has launched a vigorous campaign to defend itself. The company paid prominent lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds $ 120,000 last year to represent its interests in Washington, according to federal disclosure reports, and it recently retained the services of former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed to convince social conservatives the network is providing a valuable educational service.
“As far as the Washington policy community, we’re flying below the radar screen,” said Channel One lobbyist Jeffrey Ballabon, who says the network provides a serious news service. “We should be loved. That’s one of the reasons we’re being aggressive. The more exposure we have, the better we look.”
Founded in 1990 by entrepreneur Chris Whittle and now owned by Primedia Inc., the network offers public and private schools a deal: It provides each school with a satellite dish, two VCRs and a television as long as it agrees to air the network’s 12-minute program, which includes two minutes of ads, to 80 percent of its students on 90 percent of school days. Many administrators and teachers have praised the programming, which seamlessly intersperses segments on impeachment and the dangers of binge drinking with ads for Noxema and the U.S. Marines.
While controversial from the outset, Channel One became a lightning rod late last year when Jim Metrock, a conservative who heads the Alabama-based media watchdog group Obligation Inc., teamed up with Gary Ruskin, the liberal director of Ralph Nader’s Commercial Alert, in an unlikely coalition against the network.
The duo managed to enlist an array of groups to protest the broadcast’s content and its use of commercials in a school setting. Metrock has been a persistent critic of the network, launching a Web site on the topic, meeting with state legislators in Texas and Alabama and making four separate forays to Capitol Hill.
Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Focus on the Family and the American Family Association joined Metrock in arguing that parents were largely oblivious to the influence of Channel One, which they say once used the music of a satanic rocker and exposed children to ads touting movies and TV shows with explicit sexual content, such as “Dawson’s Creek.” Other critics have complained that the programming focuses excessively on sports figures and celebrities, rather than hard news.
“They give up a week’s worth of school time to watch this discredited program, which is nothing but a marketing gimmick,” Metrock said.
Metrock has enlisted the aid of his senator, Alabama Republican Richard C. Shelby, who began lobbying the chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), to hold a hearing on the subject. Jeffords spokesman Joe Karpinski said Channel One would come up in hearings as early as this month, when the panel addresses either commercialization or technology in the classroom.
Not all cultural conservatives are Channel One critics. Monsignor John W. Jordan, executive director of the National Catholic Educational Association, wrote Channel One’s chief executive officer to say the satellite feed both instructs children and is used by teachers to take theology courses. “The traditional values you espouse are highly consistent with those we teach,” Jordan wrote.
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, another prominent conservative, said that only liberals would attack schools for using innovative techniques that exemplify the free market and don’t cost taxpayers money. “Somebody’s decided to gang up on these guys. I don’t know who,” Norquist said in an interview this week. “This is an anti-technology, anti-commercial impulse, which I think is problematic.”
Channel One’s counteroffensive is showing other signs of success: Andrea Sheldon, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said her group is rethinking its opposition because it is hesitant about “sending a message that capitalism is bad.”
But many conservatives remain skeptical and say Ralph Reed has his work cut out for him in defending the network. “I do not think anyone would be effective in trying to persuade conservatives to support Channel One,” Schlafly said. “I don’t know anybody who’s for it.”
Channel One uses diverse, young anchors in its news broadcasts.