Today the Channel One TV show in schools asked students to go to channelone.com to read more about the Columbia story.
Children who did this were presented with a button that they could click to go to a photo gallery presumably to honor the heros of the Columbia Shuttle. Once at the galley a picture of the crew was seen and by clicking on a button they could advance through a slide show of pictures of the individual astronauts with a brief bit of information about each of them.
What was suppose to be a tribute to these brave men and women was converted by Channel Onalanis.movo a repulsive advertising assault on the children visitors. When the Shuttle Commander’s picture appeared a flashing ad was attached to the slide for Channel One’s sister company’s Seventeen magazine. Seventeen has come under constant criticism for their age-inappropriate sexual content directed at children. The ad has a background of moving balloons that are intended to draw the child’s eyes away from Rick Husband’s picture. Channel One’s obvious desire is that the visitor will click out of the photo gallery and be sent to Seventeen’s web site. Children are not warned that they will be sent to another site on the Internet.
Here is the ad that appeared on Rick Husband’s bio page. (All the astronaut’s bios had ads on them.) The ad was more than three times the size of the bio information.
When presented with Michael Anderson’s bio and picture, an incredibly insensitive flashing ad for British hip-hop artist Craig David is part of the slide. Children are urged to enter the contest Channel One is sponsoring to help promote this artist’s new record. Craig David’s music, as we reported, glorifies underage drinking. Jolly Rancher’s candy is also promoted on this ad.
What Channel One News is clearly doing is using this tragedy to market more of their junk to kids.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "I have sent an email to Channel One’s president Jim Ritts begging him to change his web site. This is beyond bad taste. Everyone knows that Channel One exists to market movies, magazines, soft drinks and candy bars to children, but even they should know that there are times that common decency demands them to halt their selling. Hopefully, Channel One News will remove the ads immediately."
