Lawrence County (AL) Board of Education
Code of Conduct for school employees.
It may be because Channel One doesn’t have any educators on its staff. It may be because they never replaced Paul Folkermer as their one-time “Education VP.” (That was more window dressing than anything.) Or it may be because Channel One has never respected teachers.
Anyway, whatever it is, Channel One is reckless with its dealings with teachers. The latest proof came today with the Gatorade Play of the Week.
Gatorade has been very, very good for Channel One News. This junk drink (for most 10 to 18-year-olds it is just excessive calories) has been helping to pay the light bills at C1N for as long as Obligation has been monitoring the show (spring 1996).
When you have a loyal, long-term advertiser like Gatorade, you give them special treatment. So a few years ago Channel One allowed Gatorade to sponsor an entire segment of each Friday’s program. They called it the Gatorade Play of the Week. This sponsored segment was nothing more than a very long commercial for Gatorade.
Channel One asks schools to send in a video of a “great” play in any sport and then they use that video as the “Gatorade Play of the Week.” The whole segment is commercial in content. The Gatorade logo is shown. Images of Gatorade products are incorporated into the segment. The message is clear, “Gatorade cares about your school and your teams. Gatorade is paying the bill for your school to be highlighted on this national broadcast. Gatorade is your friend.”
From today’s Channel One News program:
A clip from the video sent to Channel One by public school teacher Darrin Liles. Hazelwood High School is in the Lawrence Co. school district.
POTW
MELISSA: A LONG-DISTANCE CONNECTION IN ALABAMA IS THE SUBJECT OF TODAY’S PLAY OF THE WEEK. IT’S HAZLEWOOD HIGH SCHOOL AGAINST WASHINGTON COUNTY HIGH, AND HAZLEWOOD’S QUARTERBACK KEYVAN MADDEN WANTS TO AIR IT OUT. HE SPOTS BRIAN GHOLSTON DEEP WITH HIS DEFENDER IN HIS HIP-POCKET. IT’S A PERFECT STRIKE FOR SIX.
A GATORADE COOLER AND A CASE OF POWDER MIX IS ON THE WAY. AND DARIN LILES, THANKS FOR THAT PLAY … YOU’LL BE GETTING SOME STUFF FROM GATORADE AS WELL. AND ALL THE REST OF YOU, SEND IN YOUR PLAYS TO: CHANNEL ONE SPORTS — P-O BOX 74911 — LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — 90004.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, “Yet another teacher is now in trouble because of Channel One. In Alabama, and maybe the rest of the nation, a coach is hired as a teacher. The same ethical requirements for a teacher apply to a coach. We don’t know the monetary value of the ‘stuff’ this advertiser is sending to Coach Liles. What we do know is that any school employee who sends in a tape to be used for the Gatorade Play of the Week is helping to promote Gatorade. They are helping to produce the commercial by supplying original content for the commercial. Just that alone is wrong, but when you add to that a coach receiving prizes and ‘stuff’ in payment for supplying the content, then you have a serious matter.”
The practice of sending prizes to coaches and teachers in exchange for helping out Gatorade has been going on for some time. Obligation will go back and contact the school districts involved. Superintendents and their school boards need to know the names of coaches and teachers who have used their taxpayer-funded positions to help companies like Gatorade and Channel One News.
Here’s yet another reason for schools to throw Channel One News out of their classrooms.
This is the “stuff” that coaches and teachers will receive if they supply video content for Gatorade’s sponsored segment on Channel One. Are there other things in the bag?
