From Jim Metrock:
Channel One News had a major overhaul this year in an attempt to stop the relentless stream of schools dropping their TV show. They moved Kent Haehl out of the CEO’s position and put Ms. C. J. Kettler into his spot in order to create a more family-friendly company. They came out with a mobile app called The Parent Connection in order to make parents feel better about what their children are seeing on Channel One News. The name of this app was later changed to Family Daily. All to make them sound more family friendly.
And then they feature a drag queen on their first show.
This is a perfect clip of Channel One News for media literacy deconstructing.
Why did Channel One show this story about gay rights activists protesting in the streets of England? No doubt it was newsworthy, but Channel One’s audience ranges from 18-year-old high school seniors to 10-year-old very young 6th grade students. Channel One showed the same story – unchanged – to both high school and middle school students.
Channel One News believes whatever content is appropriate for high school students is also appropriate for middle school students. Does that make sense?
In the past few years, Channel One News has developed a reputation for not being objective about news stories. Can you tell how Channel One feels about the subject matter of this news story?
No matter what one might think about the subject, should Channel One have at least warned schools about the content and the images that were going to be on classroom TV sets on the morning of August 12, 2013? Channel One did not warn schools.
Media literacy question: Out of all the hundreds of protesters caught on camera for this story, why did CBS/Channel One choose only one to show to students? That one of course was the man dressed as a well endowed woman with a black bra showing through her… his clothes.
Arrogantly Channel One News defended their showing of this image of the man in drag and the subject matter because they say they want to get discussions on gay rights started in American classrooms. Unfortunately Channel One does not care about what the local community thinks.
They will put any kind of outlandish image on classroom TV sets that they want to. Nobody can stop them, unless they remove Channel One from classrooms. (A very easy thing for schools to do.)
