From Jim Metrock: I have apologized to Channel One three times since 1996 when I began researching and reporting on the youth marketing company. All of my apologies were about rather inconsequential things, but when I am wrong I want to correct the record as quickly as possible.
I recently blamed Channel One News CEO Kent Haehl for bringing back junk food advertising to the daily in-classroom TV show. When I saw the orange drink SunnyD advertised on the show I called out Kent Haehl as being ultimately responsible. It was an honest mistake. Haehl was still calling himself the CEO of the company on Linkedin.com and there had been no press releases about him leaving his position. But the reality was he was no longer the CEO. Channel One News has always been a shadowy, secretive company and they are even more secretive now in 2013.
A new CEO named CJ Kettler at sometime took over control of Channel One News. It could have been in late 2012 or in the first part of 2013. I don’t know. Nobody outside the company knows for sure. Channel One never put out a press release praising Mr. Haehl for his eight years of service to the company. Neither did they introduce Ms. Kettler to the world. Is Ms. Kettler embarrassed about her association with the commercial exploitation of schoolchildren?
All to say that it had to have been CJ Kettler who thought bringing back junk food advertising to Channel One News was a good idea. What a way for this lady to introduce herself to educators, parents, and students. SunnyD is such a joke of an “orange drink” that I cringe at what plans Ms. Kettler has for the captive audience of schoolchildren she now commands.
Soon I will write more about what I have found out about CJ Kettler, but at first blush I know this: she is not an educator – not even close – and she is not a journalist by any stretch of the imagination. We’ll talk later about what she is.
