NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (202) 387-8030
For Immediate Release: May 20th, 1999
Nader Criticizes Channel One in Testimony Before Senate Education Committee
At a hearing today before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Ralph Nader criticized Channel One, and urged its removal from the public schools. Following are excerpts of his testimony.
“Channel One is a marketing company that uses the schools to deliver advertising to captive audiences of children. Each school day, in classrooms all over the nation, work comes to a halt, and the teacher turns on Channel One—a TV show with two minutes of commercials and ten minutes of “news.” Currently, the MTV-like show reaches about eight million middle, junior high and high school students in about 12,000 schools. In these schools, students spend the equivalent of about one class week each year watching Channel One, including one full school day just watching ads. Channel One receives entry into schools in exchange for loaning each school two videocassette recorders, a satellite dish, and television monitors for each classroom. This is a disgracefully unbalanced and unnecessary exchange.”
“Channel One doesn’t belong in schools because it conveys materialism and harmful messages to children, corrupts the integrity of schools and degrades the moral authority of schools and teachers, exploits schools and compulsory attendance laws to coerce schoolchildren to watch ads, and wastes school time and tax money.”
“Channel One is a Trojan horse. Advertisers use it to sneak commercial messages past parents and to deliver them to children—in public schools. Many parents haven’t ever heard of Channel One, don’t know what it is, or whether it is in their children’s schools.”
“Schools that show Channel One implicitly endorse the products that Channel One advertises. In effect, Channel One appropriates the authority of the school and teacher and transfers it to the advertisers. This degrades the moral authority of teachers, schools and the state.”
“Channel One’s appropriation of the school’s moral authority is wrong, but it is doubly harmful when the moral authority of the school is used to send destructive messages to schoolchildren, whether it is to purchase harmful products, or to develop materialistic values.”
“When states require the attendance of children in schools, they bear a moral responsibility and a duty to care for the children, and to act in their best interests. This is a serious responsibility. The duty is a public trust. School boards, school administrators and teachers are public trustees. School boards violate this public trust when they coerce children to watch Channel One’s ads in school—particularly ads that show destructive influences and commercial messages.”
“Many schools are now met with fiscal emergencies, and educate children with crumbling infrastructure, old texts, and beleaguered teachers. This is a national tragedy. Public schools deserve adequate funding. But using the compulsory attendance laws to sell children to Channel One’s advertisers is not a responsible answer to the problem of tight school budgets. A child’s school time should not be for sale. It is not a commercial resource to be rented to advertisers or to the highest bidder. Nor should children be required to subsidize their own education by being forced to watch advertisements. They are, after all, only children. Their childhood deserves better than this.”
“Channel One’s commercials are not educational. Children are in school to learn, not to waste time. But Channel One wastes class time not only because it contains advertising, but also because much of its programming has limited or no educational value.”
“Channel One wastes tax money because it is shown in public schools, which are funded by the taxpayers. In effect, it is taxpayer subsidized advertising to children, which uses up school time that ought to be devoted to real teaching and learning.”
“Channel One is a taxpayer rip-off. Taxpayers are paying for the class time that Channel One uses to pitch advertising to children. Time is money. This waste of class time is a misuse of tax money. Any school administrator or school board official concerned about waste of tax money should work diligently to remove Channel One from their local public schools.”
“Senators should stop all federal funds from being used to advertise on Channel One. The Federal government should extract itself from complicity in forcing children to watch advertising in public schools. The federal government should not be supporting a corporation that harms children, schools and taxpayers.”
“Local school boards can and should approve policies against Channel One and commercialism in their schools. It is very important for local school boards to take their responsibility and public trust seriously, and to make sure that Channel One is kept out of their school. This is an excellent education reform that protects children, schools and taxpayers, yet costs nothing.”
“States ought to follow the lead of New York State, and ban Channel One from their school systems.”
“Non-profit organizations should cut their ties with Channel One. Channel One claims to be ‘partners’ with a number of organizations, including the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Channel One uses these organizations as fig leafs camouflaging its commercial pursuits of these youngsters. These organizations ought to immediately disengage from any ‘partnership’ with Channel One.”
“[W]e ought to use our power as consumers to convince advertisers to pull their commercials from Channel One. The CEO’s of these companies need to take personal responsibility for their actions in support of Channel One. Following is an incomplete list of corporations that have advertised on Channel One during the months of April and May: M&M/Mars (M&M’s, Snickers); PepsiCo, Inc. (Pepsi, Mountain Dew); Gatorade; Twentieth Century Fox Film ("Never Been Kissed"); RJR Nabisco Inc. (Bubble Yum bubble gum); Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company (Juicy Fruit gum, Extra bubble gum); Procter & Gamble (Clearasil, Noxzema, Old Spice); Kellogg Company (Corn Pops); Reebok International Ltd. (Reebok sneakers); and Foot Locker. We strongly urge parents to complain to these companies. Tell the companies that they should not be supporting Channel One. Eventually, if these companies do not remove their ads from Channel One, opponents may have to launch boycotts against some of their products.”
“It’s time for parents, school board members and state legislators, and Members of Congress to oppose Channel One. Channel One is harmful to children, schools, taxpayers and democracy. Students’ minds should not be for sale or rent. And it is not the function of the public schools to deliver a captive audience of impressionable children to multinational corporations. Keep the moral authority of teachers and schools intact. The public schools are supposed to be a refuge, a sanctuary from commercial interests - not yet another place for corporations to peddle their products, largely low-grade products.”
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