Former anchor Jessica Kumari uses her well-known image and “journalistic” reputation to pitch a new Nintendo video game to middle school girls. Yuck. This is pretty low, even by Channel One News standards.
From Jim Metrock: Well she showed up. I was wondering what happened to Jessica Kumari after she left Channel One News this past May,
After working at Channel One for an unbelievable stretch of six years! I was interested to see at what her next job would be. On September 18 I found out she is still at Channel One News – in a way, and it was shocking to see what she is doing.
May 20, 2012 -Jessica Kumari finally leaves Channel One News
Students in the remaining schools that continue showing Channel One last saw Ms. Kumari doing news reports in late May. Many schools had already dismissed for the summer break before Ms. Kumari left the show, so her appearance in a… wait for it… Nintendo commercial in September had to have been confusing for students. That confusion is what Ms. Kumari, Channel One CEO Ms. C.J. Kettler, and Nintendo were counting on. Mixing ads with news always makes the advertisement more powerful and effective. It is a revolting thing to do, but it is effective.
So Jessica Kumari is now a pitch lady for Nintendo. So much for journalistic ethics – if there were any to begin with.
Of course I can hear Ms. Kettler and Ms. Kumari defending themselves by saying, “Ms. Kumari is no longer a reporter for Channel One. She is free to do whatever she wants to do. She is just an individual making some money pitching a product on Channel One.” If they do think that, they are wrong. Ms. Kumari was the face of Channel One reporting for the last six years. For all purposes she IS a reporter in this commercial. That is exactly what Channel One wanted middle school girls to think.
This is ugly stuff. Ms. Kumari continues to make bad career decisions, and Channel One News continues to alienate educators and parents with moronic stunts like this.
Check out the commercial below.
Note: Here is some good reading that could benefit CEO C.J. Kettler, Channel One reporters Shelby Holliday, Scott Evans, Keith Kocinski, Maggie Rullie, Lissa Moses, Jason Kuang, Demetrius Pipkin, Kristin Sachau, and Zachary Carr-Dreher and of course Jessica Kumari.http://www.spj.org/pdf/ethicscode.pdf
