Each year Channel One
News offers a chance for students to help produce one week of the
program. This is called Student Produced Week (SPW).
For months, Channel One wastes valuable time on their show to
promote this event. This year they took a page from reality shows
and had four students co-host the show last week and then had students
vote on their favorite at Channelone.com. This had the added bonus
of driving children to their web site where advertising is on every
page. The more "hits" Channel One’s web advertisers get,
the more money for Channel One.
No school ever gave Channel One permission to waste THEIR students’
time with such nonsense. But as with so many things, Channel One
assumed no one would mind.
Yesterday, Monday, March 21, the Channel One news anchor, during
the show, made a phone call to the surprised winner.
The voting occurred over the weekend. A person could vote as many
times as they wanted to. There were no safeguards to give the voting
any credibility. Like other "votes" on Channel One, it
is very open for Channel One to manipulate the vote.
Here is a portion of yesterday’s transcript. Try to imagine, up
to 8 million students, doing nothing but watching TV during this
time.
Exercise: Time yourself as you read this transcript out loud.
Multiply the time (in minutes or fraction of a minute) by 4,000,000
(a reasonable guess at Channel One’s actual everyday audience)
and then multiply that by about 12 cents/minute ( a conservative
figure for the taxpayer cost of supporting one student in public
schools for one minute). How much did this gimmick cost out country?
[UP NEXT]
ERROL: AND JUST AHEAD — WE REVEAL THE WINNER OF OUR STUDENT PRODUCED
WEEK ANCHOR SEARCH … NEXT.
Commercials
[CONTEST WINNER]
ERROL: WELCOME BACK. WELL, THE SEARCH IS OVER — IT’S NOW TIME TO TELL
YOU WHO HAS BEEN CHOSEN TO BE OUR FIFTH AND FINAL STUDENT PRODUCED WEEK
ANCHOR. NOW, AS YOU MAY REMEMBER, WE HAD FOUR CANDIDATES. LET’S TAKE
A LOOK …
THEY WERE TYLER MALLET FROM BEAU CHENE HIGH SCHOOL IN LOUISIANA — SHAKIRA
MASSIAH FROM CHAMBLEE HIGH SCHOOL OVER THERE IN GEORGIA — ANDREW EDWARDS
FROM BURLEY HIGH SCHOOL IN IDAHO — AND BRITTANY ROUILLE FROM ST. THOMAS
AQUINAS HIGH SCHOOL IN FLORIDA.
AND HERE’S THE MOMENT OF TRUTH … WE’RE GOING TO GET THE WINNER ON THE
PHONE RIGHT NOW.
VOICE: HELLO?
ERROL: HI, IS THIS … TYLER MALLET?
TYLER MALLET: YES, IT IS.
ERROL: HEY, TYLER, THIS IS ERROL BARNETT CALLING FROM CHANNEL
ONE NEWS.
TYLER: HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON?
ERROL: JUST WANT TO SAY CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WILL BE OUR FINAL
ANCHOR FOR STUDENT PRODUCED WEEK.
TYLER: THANK YOU! THANKS, ERROL.
ERROL: LET ME — THINK OUTLOUD HERE … HOW DO YOU FEEL?
TYLER: I’VE BEEN … WELL, I’M NERVOUS. I’VE BEEN WAITING
BY MY PHONE FOR ABOUT 20 MINUTES. ERROL: HOW DO YOU FEEL RIGHT
NOW THEN?
TYLER: I FEEL VERY RELIEVED.
ERROL: GOOD, WELL, WE’LL BE VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU. GET READY
TO PACK YOUR BAGS, WE’LL SEE YOU OUT HERE IN A FEW WEEKS.
TYLER: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CALLING.
ERROL: NO PROBLEM. TAKE CARE. TYLER: YOU, TOO, BYE-BYE.
[GOODBYES]
SOFIA: THAT WAS GREAT. WELL, WE’RE SO HAPPY FOR TYLER, AND WE ALSO WANT
TO THANK OUR OTHER THREE CANDIDATES. IN ALL HONESTY, GUYS, WE WOULD HAVE
WON NO MATTER WHO WE GOT. THEY WERE ALL FANTASTIC.
ERROL: YES. AND THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR VOTING. IT WILL BE
TYLER AND THE ENTIRE S-P-W TEAM ON THE AIR DURING STUDENT PRODUCED
WEEK, WHICH IS THE SECOND WEEK OF APRIL.
SOFIA: WELL, THAT’S IT FOR US, GUYS. TAKE CARE.
ERROL: BYE-BYE.
SOFIA: BYE
Now we have nothing against this high school student who wants
to be a news anchor for a week. It will be great fun for him to
go to Hollywood and be in front of the cameras. However, the main
purpose behind SPW is to audition talent for possible future employment.
Several people who have done this before have ended up working
for Channel One News. This is a clever way for taxpayers to subsidize
Channel One’s recruiting expenses.
