Governor Taft Urged Not to Punish Children Who Decline to Watch Channel One or TV in School

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert					October 18, 2000

	Commercial Alert and Obligation Inc. sent a letter today to Ohio
Governor Bob Taft asking him not to allow local school systems to punish
children who won't watch Primedia's Channel One in the public schools. 
According to the Toledo Blade, two Ohio children were held in a juvenile
detention center on October 6th for refusing to watch Channel One and TV
in public school.  Primedia's Channel One is a controversial televised
in-school marketing program.  The letter follows.

Dear Governor Taft:

	Local school officials are using Ohio's compulsory education laws to
force children to watch commercial television and advertising in school,
including the controversial marketing program Channel One.  We urge you
to take a stand for children and stop this abuse of the authority of the
state. 

	According to the Toledo Blade, two Ohio children, D.J. and Carlotta
Maurer, spent October 6th in the Wood County Juvenile Detention Center
because they refused to watch Channel One and other televised
programming at Perrysburg Junior High School.  They refused because they
choose not to take in the degraded commercial culture that Channel One
and media corporations deliver to children each day.
	
	Channel One does not exist to help or teach kids.  It exists to help
corporations that want to market to kids.  As a Channel One executive
once said, "The biggest selling point to advertisers [is] . . . we are
forcing kids to watch two minutes of commercials" each day.

	Ohio's compulsory education laws exist for the nurture of children, not
their exploitation. But Primedia's Channel One has been able to harness
the coercive arm of the State of Ohio to force schoolchildren to watch
its daily fare.  This includes "lite" news and advertisements for
violent entertainment such as "Supernova," "The Mummy," and James Bond
"The World is Not Enough," as well as junk food, video games and
low-grade sensuality.  That is a blatant misuse of state power. It is
not the proper role of the schools or the state to promote such products
and values to innocent and vulnerable schoolchildren.  Certainly, the
laws of the state should never be used to compel children to subject
themselves to such promotion.  When the government sends children to a
juvenile detention center because they don't want to watch advertising,
that is both Orwellian and more than a little sick.

	The public schools ought to be a sanctuary from the noxious aspects of
the commercial culture.  Many parents are rightly worried about the way
the commercial culture saturates their kids lives with degraded values
and nonstop seductions. 

	We strongly urge you to take a stand for parents and remove Channel One
from Ohio's public schools.  This would be a clarion call for those
parents who wish their children to grow up free from the depredations
and enticements of the media corporations and their advertisers.

Sincerely,

Gary Ruskin, Director, Commercial Alert
Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc.

<-----letter ends here------>
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Please ask Ohio Governor Bob Taft to
1) Get Channel One out of Ohio's public schools; and,
2) Make sure that local school systems to punish children who won't
watch TV or Primedia's Channel One in the public schools.

Governor Taft's email address is <Governor.Taft@das.state.oh.us>, his
fax is (614) 466-9354 and phone is 614-466-3555.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
about the Maurer children and their detention for refusing to watch
Channel One and TV in school, see the web page <http://tvorjail.com/>

Commercial Alert opposes corporate exploitation of children and the
excesses of commercialism, advertising and marketing.  Commercial
Alert's web page is at <http://www.essential.org/alert/>.

Obligation, Inc. works to remind businesses and governments of their
responsibility to children.  Obligation's website is at
<http://www.obligation.org/>


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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
-- 
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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
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