Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools

Five Years Later: College Freshmen Remember Channel One
November 12, 2001

 

[Channel One is] a simplified CNN for kids or normal people with very short-attention spans. It keeps self-absorbed middle-schoolers somewhat informed of the important things going on outside the confines of their social sphere. It takes up time that could otherwise be spent on curricular academia. The quality of the reports should be held to a higher standard. Don't dumb it down!
--ZJ, Yale

 

An interesting idea, that was not quite fully developed. It had a lot of unrealized potential. It forced us, as middle schoolers, to be more conscious of the world around us. It wasn't necessarily professionally done, and much attention was spent mocking the program as opposed to absorbing its information. If more effort is put into its presentation, Channel One has the potential to be an influential program in middle schoolers' lives.
--GG, Dartmouth

 

More a source of entertainment than of news. Occasionally, it provided a good starting point for discussion. It has the potential to spark some interest in the world around us--it's some form of news. The same goal could have been accomplished more efficiently and with success through other methods. Maybe we should have scanned the newspaper every morning and brought in one article that we thought was important for discussion, or the teacher could have done this. In retrospect, Channel One was not a very memorable experience and I am hard-pressed to remember any true benefits that I got from it. What Channel One tried to do could have been done much better in a different way.
--DY, Stanford

 

Ditzy, occasionally well-meaning reporting with a lot of advertising. [Channel One] informed kids of some pertinent issues. [It had] one-sided, shallow reporting, intermittent advertising. To be honest, middle school was not that great a use of my time. Channel One was somewhat of an annoyance, but I don't know if a school-sponsored alternative would have been any better.
--JW, Univ. of Oregon

 

[Channel One is] a "news" program aimed at middle and high school students that specialized in feature stories of interest to teenagers (tended not to cover "real" or controversial news). Also a tool for Chris Whittle to exploit hundreds of thousands of young people by targeting them as a consumer market.

[The best thing about it was] making fun of the dumb reporters like Lisa Ling. I remember one episode about China that was pretty interesting. (at least it's the only thing I remember.). [Channel One] didn't have that much of an effect on me because I hardly ever watched it. I guess we could have had longer breaks or a longer lunch instead. It was a waste of time, the issues were trite, it was pretty condescending to teenagers, and represented a fairly conservative bias.

"the temperature inside your mouth is a steamy 98.6 degrees. bleh. The temperature inside a winterfresh mouth is... much, MUCH COOLER! icy cool flavor, icy cool breath! that lasts...and lasts."
--KBW, Wesleyan

 

I think it's a good idea to try and inform kids of what's going on in the world, but I thought Channel One was trying to be 'hip' and bring the news down to the level of teenagers. But, I think in order for kids to appreciate the news, they need to be brought up to the level of it. There was too much advertising. The main thing I remember about Channel One is hearing this one gum commercial every commercial break. It's one of the most distinct memories I have of all of middle school. I think that if people want kids to be informed of what's going on in the world, someone should teach it to them personally. Channel One allows no questions to be asked, and kids' understanding of what's going on is based solely upon what they decide to present in the newscast.
--DG, Colby College

 

[Channel One is] a relatively moderate quality news show aimed at a middle school audience. It gave middle schoolers a glimpse into what was going on in the country, which was helpful because for a lot of students it was the only news they watched at that time. It showed news with a really conservative bias and only focused on a few issues, often missing the most relevant ones in favor of more trivial issues.
--MO, Pepperdine

 

The reason for Channel One is to play commercials to teenagers, who are big consumers. I only watched it in 6th and 7th grade, and I'm now in college, but I'll never forget the Extra Sugarfeee Gum and Winterfresh commercials I saw every morning for two years. If the purpose was to convey the news to teenagers, it should not have commercials and should actually show current news events (not just fun "teen" events) and the format should be a newspaper.

There was one good story when a reporter (Lisa Ling?) went to Afghanistan. All of the other stories were cheesy MTV-type stories. Obviously, I would have rather been getting an education, or, sleeping in (since we watched it at the beginning of the day.) We never talked about what was on Channel 1 in class, so most of the time I didn't pay attention.
--V V, University of Oregon