Can you tell what is different between these two video clips?
Original opening to Channel One News, September 21, 2006.
Altered opening to the same show.
[Both clips are filmed from Channel One’s webcast. Obligation’s request for tapes of Channel One shows have been ignored by the company. One can see why Channel One doesn’t want people looking closely at their program.]
Answer: The original opening is what students saw and heard in their classroom. The altered version is what parents would see and hear if they went to Channel One’s website. In the original, Channel One chose the lyrics of a song that contained "sure as hell." In the sanitized version for parents, Channel One chose a different lyric from the same song.
After Obligation wrote about Channel One’s bizarre decision to open their show with a "cuss" word, Channel One evidently decided that this may indeed have been a mistake so they changed the show. They just used their studio equipment and made the lyrics with "hell" go away. Bingo, it never happened. And if it never happened, then no one needs to apologize.
If a parent was told by a child that they heard a "bad word" on Channel One, they would go check it out on Channel One’s website. Because Channel One changed their program, the parent would think the child was mistaken.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "I have written CEO Judy Harris and asked for her comments. I wanted to know if this is routinely done by Channel One. Are parents and the rest of the public seeing the PG-version of the show on channelone.com’s webcast and students are seeing the PG-13 version at school? Ms. Harris didn’t reply. If it wasn’t for Obligation, this would never have been caught. By changing their show on their website, it makes it difficult for parents and others to make informed decisions about the appropriateness of Channel One."
