Over 23,000 Jefferson County system secondary schoolchildren will return to school on Tuesday, August 11, and for yet another year be required to watch the controversial Channel One in-school TV show for up to one hour a week.
Channel One is the daily 12-minute news show that contains commercials. Schools get the use of TV equipment if they promise that the captive audience of students will be shown the program and ads for at least 90% of all school days. Nearly all major educational organizations have opposed Channel One. Professor William Hoynes, author of the 1997 Vassar College study on Channel One called the program, “a slick 12-minute commercial. It is not educational television.”
Obligation, a Birmingham-based child advocacy organization, has been leading a two-year effort to make parents and other taxpayers aware of the waste involved with Channel One.
Jim Metrock, Obligation president, said, “Channel One is an advertising device, not an educational tool. Parents of Jefferson County students have no idea that their child will have to sit through commercials for risqu
