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February 12, 2003(Channel) One is the lonliest number...
Today’s journal entry is brought to you by the fine folks at Channel One. Channel One puts out a daily news show, if one can call it that. It’s really just a front for advertising in the classroom. Channel One has struck a Faustian bargain with schools across America, donating TV sets to be installed in every classroom. The only catch? You guessed it—that Channel One be given unfettered access to your school, the freedom to monopolize ten minutes of my teaching time every weekday. It’s one part Mister Rogers and one part Shylock, with just a pinch of journalistic integrity tossed in for appearance. Grrrr…
For those of you who haven’t had the distinct pleasure of watching Channel One, let me give you an abridged version of the show’s basic format.
LIGHTS UP
(Camera swoops and swirls around the Channel One set, which has been fastidiously decorated with all manners of hip tchotchkes and flair, a la TGI Friday’s. It focuses in on two young people, both impossibly clear of skin and bright of smile. One might make the mistake of assuming they are print models who stumbled into the wrong studio. Nay, friend, they are our news anchors.)
PHOTOGENIC MALE: Hello, and welcome to Channel 1! We don’t credit you with the intelligence or interest to absorb grown-up news media, so we’re going to dumb it down for you.
PHOTOGENIC FEMALE: Here comes the airplane! (Swoops arm forward as if cajoling an infant into opening its mouth for a spoonful of blended peas.) Bzzzzzz…bzzzzzzz…
PHOTOGENIC MALE: (dropping fake British accent in his panic) I don’t see an airplane!
CUT TO: NEWS STORY #1
(We see the slightly less photogenic male who has been banished from the set and now must serve as lowly field reporter).
SLIGHTLY LESS PHOTOGENIC MALE: We’re probably going to go to war with Iraq. Can you say “Iraq,” kiddies? Good! I knew you could!
CUT TO: COMMERCIAL #1
(All manner of useless crap is crassly marketed to young people who, after all, don’t have any major financial commitments and whose allowances are begging to be spent. Ninety percent of the time, this commercial will be for a video game, Mountain Dew, some upcoming film, a teen-based TV show, or clothes. One in every ten or so times, the commercial will be an anti-drug PSA, so sinister in its vibe that one must wonder if they hired actual crack addicts, drunken drivers, or acquaintance rapists as consultants.)
Repeat this combination ad nausium for about ten or twelve minutes, and you’ve had the Channel One experience. The principals under which Channel One operates offend me. They’re operating under the assumption that teenagers are chimps who can’t be bothered to look beyond their own navels unless they’re given young anchors, pabulum for content, and a Top 40 song to usher in each new segment. Intellectually speaking, they’re the news equivalent of those pull-up diapers for kids who are in the midst of their potty training. "Here you go, Junior. They look like big-boy pants, sure, but they’re really just gussied-up diapers, just in case you suffer a relapse and crap all over yourself."
Did I mention the TVs they gave us are cheap, and that if you turn them up loud enough to hear anything, people’s dialogue starts sounding like any adult from any “Charlie Brown” animated special? Well, friend, they are and it does.
Posted by patrick at February 12, 2003 10:07 PM
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