Editorials and Opinion Pieces

 Tuning in to Channel One

BY: Grover Norquist, special to the Washington Times
DATE: January 30, 1999
SECTION: PART C; COMMENTARY; Pg. C3
LENGTH: 877 words

An independent news media outlet not controlled by liberals has seeped into the public schools. The liberals are hysterical in trying to stop it.

Channel One Network provides a daily 12 minute news program for middle and high school students in 12,000 public, private and parochial schools across the country. Its daily audience of 8.5 million is quite close to the daily audience of the major network evening news shows. Indeed, Channel One reaches 5 times as many teen-agers each day as the news shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN combined. Each school that signs up for Channel One receives $50,000 worth of telecommunications equipment, including a fixed KU band satellite dish, 19-inch color TVs in every classroom, VCRs and internal wiring, with complete maintenance by Channel One. Apart from Channel One's daily news program, the school can use this telecommunications network for any other educational, training or student programming they choose.

Indeed, Channel One provides an additional two hours per day of optional educational programming, including historical documentaries, biographies and programs on mathematics, science and art. After the school receives the Channel One service for six years, all the telecommunications equipment becomes the property of the school.

The entirely original daily news program is produced by Channel One's own staff and reporters on location around the world. The program is geared to interest teen-agers in the news and is highly popular with students. The Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan reports that 93 percent of teachers and 85 percent of school principals say they would recommend Channel One to other schools. The daily news show now has more than 159 awards in less than 10 years, including the Faith and Values Award, the Responsibility in Television Award, and the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award.

The news program is provided to each school every day in advance for prescreening. If the school considers the program inappropriate in any way, it doesn't have to air it for the students. That has almost never happened in nearly 10 years of broadcasts.

And what does Channel One charge the students for this entire service? Absolutely nothing. The entire operation is financed at a profit by 2 minutes of commercials in the daily 12 minute broadcast.

Critics accuse Channel One of committing capitalism in the classroom with its commercials. But those 2 minutes of ads each day are a far better way of financing the telecommunications equipment and programming Channel One provides than using taxpayer funds. Channel One has come up with a brilliant free market innovation that can translate into lower taxes.

Indeed, every newspaper and magazine used in a classroom is filled with ads, as is the Internet, now used in schools as well. Ads also are found in student newspapers and yearbooks, and at school sports events. Channel One ads are the same as those seen on network TV by teen-agers every day.

Critics also lamely claim that with Channel One students are wasting valuable class time watching TV. But Channel One is simply an advanced technological version of educational films, which have been used in schools at least since the 1950s. Teachers use the Channel One news programs to begin discussions of classroom subjects referenced in the broadcasts, as well as using the longer educational programs to help teach basic subjects across the board.

Here's some better clues to the real source of opposition. Channel One producer, Andy Hill, is one of the creators of the prime-time TV shows "Touched By An Angel" and "Promised Land," acclaimed by conservatives as the best on TV. Channel One, in fact, publicly touts itself as "an old-fashioned newscast that often reflects traditional values no longer see non-network news."

One liberal academic attacked Channel One because its programs "often highlight a conservative viewpoint and valorize male role models." Repeating that criticism, a study from the Vassar Department of Sociology also complains about Channel One reports "on the flat tax, punishment for violent teen-agers, and the proposed amendment to ban flag burning." One supportive teacher says without Channel One her students "wouldn't know who Pat Buchanan was."

The Vassar study further complains that Channel One programs "suggest, often quite directly, that the fundamental issues are about individual moral choices. For example, a report on teen-age mothers closed with an explicit call for teen abstinence from sexual activity. And reports on teen-age pregnancy and teens in prison suggested that teens are responsible for their own poor choices and resulting consequences." Horrors!

At least Catholic schools know a good deal when they see one. Monsignor John W. Jordan, executive director of Serve Our Schools and Parishes, writes to Channel One, "The traditional values you espouse are highly consistent with those we teach. Channel One has proven to be a staunch friend to traditional Catholic educators."

Public schools that do not have Channel One are missing out on a good deal for the taxpayers as well as their students.