READING, WRITING AND PROPAGANDA

American School Kids Are Being Subjected To "News" Programs That Contain
Covert Government-Sponsored Anti-Drug Messages.

Channel One, the company that beams TV news programs and commercials into
thousands of schools in the U.S., has broadcast dozens of news segments
that contained anti-drug messages in the past three years -- and received
millions of dollars' worth of ad credits from the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy for doing so, Salon has learned.

The arrangement, in which taxpayers' money was used to underwrite a covert
anti-drug message shown to millions of schoolchildren in the guise of a
supposedly objective news program, appeared to violate the ONDCP's publicly
stated policy that news and editorial pieces would not be eligible for the
ad credit program.

Documents obtained by Salon explaining why some news segments were accepted
and others rejected last year shed light on the process by which a media
company and a law enforcement branch of the U.S. government came to a
mutually satisfactory understanding over the monetary value of news programs.

According to Cornelia Pechmann, a marketing expert who was hired by the
ONDCP to evaluate whether stories or segments were sufficiently "on
message" to receive ad credits, of 10 news segments Channel One submitted
for approval from August 2000 to January 2001, only one was approved.
However, during the second half of the school year, from February to May
2001, Pechmann approved seven of the 11 stories Channel One submitted.
Salon has obtained an evaluation sheet rejecting nine of 10 segments for
the year's first half, as well as tapes of several of the later submissions
that were approved. The rejected segments were turned down because they
were too general, too equivocal in their stance and/or did not contain
sufficiently explicit anti-drug messages. The accepted segments were much
more narrowly focused and contained unequivocal anti-drug messages.

Channel One refused comment despite numerous calls to its president, Jim
Ritts, and to Tom Rogers, the chairman of its parent company, Primedia. The
ONDCP and the White House also declined to comment.

But critics of the ONDCP's controversial advertising program (which gained
national notoriety when Salon revealed that TV networks had turned scripts
of prime-time shows with anti-drug messages over to the ONDCP for vetting,
in hopes of gaining cash credit) were quick to condemn the arrangement.

Kevin Zeese, president of the advocacy group Common Sense for Drug Policy,
saw the dramatic increase in the number of segments that Channel One got
approved for matching credit as evidence that "they know what tune to play
to get the government's money. I suspect it was a conscious decision to
warp their reporting to satisfy the government's requirements."

"ONDCP is treading dangerous waters," said Dr. Kathryn Montgomery,
president of the Center for Media Education, criticizing Channel One for
lacking journalistic integrity. "The government shouldn't be let off the
hook either, for its participation in undermining the integrity of the
news," Montgomery said. "Maybe we should haul Channel One before the
Federal Trade Commission for deceptive marketing practices in calling
itself news. They bill themselves as news and clearly everything is for sale."

In addition to Channel One, Pechmann told Salon, she assessed TV shows from
NBC, Fox (including two television movies), CBS, the Family Channel, WB,
Arts & Entertainment, Lifetime, the E! Network, and articles from Teen
Newsweek, Girls Life and Scouting. She said she also evaluated
"documentaries and biographies," but didn't specify what network they
appeared on.

Pechmann said she also received more than one submission for evaluation
from the New York Times, including a news article published last November
reporting on a town meeting about youth drug use. Catherine Mathis, vice
president of corporate communications for the Times, acknowledged that a
Times salesperson working on the ONDCP account had submitted the articles,
but stated that the employee, who she said was acting on his or her own
initiative, had done so in error and had been instructed not to do so
again. She declined to name the employee. In an e-mail, Mathis wrote that
"it was the Times's practice to only submit advertising" to the ONDCP, not
news articles or features, and that the salesperson, "unaware of our
practice, erroneously submitted articles." Mathis confirmed that more than
one article was submitted, but declined to say how many. Pechmann said that
she had approved the New York Times article for ad credit because it met
the ONDCP's criteria, and passed it to her superiors. Mathis wrote that
"because the ONDCP's media campaign contractor [the advertising agency
Ogilvy & Mather] was aware of the Times' practice, senior managers flagged
the article that had been reviewed by lower level managers, and no value
was placed nor credit offered."

Pechmann gave details of the articles submitted by Teen Newsweek, a joint
venture between the Weekly Reader Corp. and Newsweek. The magazine
submitted three articles this spring for possible ad credits, according to
Pechmann: a feature on the travails of the actor Robert Downey Jr.; one on
the "war on addiction"; and one on ONDCP's own effort, "What's Your Anti-Drug."

(Last year, Salon reported that at least six major U.S. magazines had
submitted anti-drug articles to the ONDCP in an attempt to qualify for
ad-credit dollars. The magazines were U.S. News and World Report, the
Sporting News, Family Circle, Seventeen, Parade and USA Weekend.)

Informed that articles had been submitted for White House approval, Teen
Newsweek publisher and editor in chief Roseanna Hansen said, "It's news to
me ... It's possible." Hansen, who was on medical leave from January to
March, said she was aware that ONDCP advertised in "several publications"
published by Weekly Reader Corp. "Our articles are selected for their news
value, not for any other reason," Hansen said in a subsequent voice
message, adding "I'm not aware of anything along the lines you're
describing, of articles submitted for financial credit."

Debbie Nevins, Teen Newsweek's managing editor, said that two articles
adapted from Newsweek, "War on Addiction" and "Robert Downey Jr. Takes it
One Day at a Time," ran in her Feb. 19, 2001, edition, and that one short,
internally generated piece, "What's Your Anti-Drug?" on ONDCP's effort of
the same name, ran on Feb. 26.

Terry Bromberg, president of Lifetime Learning Systems, a Weekly Reader
Corp. (WRC) sibling to Teen Newsweek, is in charge of selling advertising
for several WRC magazines. He told Salon that while Teen Newsweek itself
ran no ONDCP ads, five publications in his stable did. They were Read and
Current Science, which are published every two weeks; and Career World,
Writing and Current Health 2, which are monthlies. He admitted that
numerous WRC articles, possibly including the three from Teen Newsweek,
were submitted for evaluation. But he said they were submitted not out of a
desire to maximize profits but simply because his magazines ran out of
issues to run free ads it owed the ONDCP. (Media companies from whom the
ONDCP makes ad buys owe the White House matching ad time, but can redeem
the time owed by submitting content for ONDCP evaluation. The process is
explained in greater detail below.)

According to Bromberg, last October the ONDCP bought three ads in the five
magazines listed above; it was therefore owed three free ads. Bromberg said
the company wanted to run the three free ads, but simply ran out of time --
so it had to submit the articles. "The only reason it occurred is that the
advertising campaign started later in the fall than we anticipated -- we
ran out of issues," he said. "If the school year had run longer, we would
have gladly run the third free ad. And so there would have been no need to
submit the articles. In fact, we would not have submitted the articles."

In any case, Bromberg said, "The WRC 100 percent complies with our
relationship with Ogilvy, which we are pleased to continue by carrying
ONDCP advertising next year."

Newsweek itself would neither confirm nor deny that its licensee had
submitted articles to ONDCP. Director of media relations Ken Weine said,
"To our knowledge, no such effort was made as you describe. We would not
believe any effort to obtain financial credit for any editorial content
published under the Newsweek logo is appropriate. To our knowledge, no
Newsweek salesperson was involved with this if it did happen." The ONDCP's
controversial ad-credit program arose as part of a five-year, nearly $1
billion, federally financed anti-drug media campaign approved by Congress
in 1997, with the stipulation that ONDCP could only buy advertising if the
media company it was buying from would agree to sell additional ad time or
space at half price. The two-for-one deal boosted the total value of the
campaign to nearly $2 billion.

But rather than forcing media companies to meet this requirement entirely
with a second ad for no further compensation -- a financially onerous
arrangement, especially during boom times when ad buys are costly -- the
White House allowed them to use content it approved for up to 49 percent of
the value of time or space owed the government from the original
two-for-one deal. The ONDCP refers to such deals as "pro bono" matches, but
the phrase is inaccurate: If the content meets ONDCP's strict
anti-drug-message criteria, the media company that submitted it saves money
that can total millions of dollars. (Magazines and newspapers can either
sell the ad space to another client or save money by not running the ad;
television invariably earns more by selling to other clients.)

As recently disclosed in Salon, on May 31 the ONDCP quietly terminated the
most controversial portion of its program, in which it approved the
anti-drug messages in TV sitcoms and dramas for advertising credit. But the
other ad credit arrangements continue.

The ONDCP deals with Channel One and Teen Newsweek -- and even more
egregiously, the abortive New York Times one -- would seem to violate
ONDCP's stated policy that news and editorial content would not be eligible
for match consideration. According to a July 2000 ONDCP "Statement of Pro
Bono Match Program and Guidelines," "Feature stories or public materials in
print" are eligible, but "anything involving news or editorials or [that]
could be perceived as news or editorials (as determined by the Strategic
Message Specialist)" is not.

The distinction between "news" and "features" is a blurry one. But the
Channel One segments submitted to the ONDCP would seem to qualify as news:
Channel One characterizes itself as a news organization, and indeed is the
only "news" encountered by many of its claimed 8 million viewers in 12,000
schools in grades six to 12 across the nation. (These numbers are disputed
by some Channel One critics.) Teen Newsweek's articles also arguably could
be defined as news stories.

As for the one known article erroneously submitted by the New York Times,
it was clearly a news article. Written by Joan Swirsky and titled "Hewlett
Schools Head Sees Drug 'Epidemic,'" it appeared in the Times' Long Island
section on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2000. Its opening read: "Drug and alcohol abuse
'by our own children' has reached an 'almost epidemic state,' Dr. Charles
W. Fowler, the superintendent of Hewlett-Woodmere public schools, said in a
letter to parents announcing a town meeting to discuss what could be done
about the problem."

The article then described a meeting packed with concerned parents
listening to several experts. One expert who attended the meeting is quoted
as saying, "Baby-boomer parents are confused about their own values about
drugs. Many of them think that it's a phase that their children will
outgrow, but many kids don't." He added, "There is an increase in the use
and range of drugs."

The Times writer noted, "Concrete solutions like setting limits and
age-appropriate boundaries, seeking professional advice and chaperoning
parties were suggested at the meeting."

Pechmann, who approved the Times article for credit, explained that to
qualify for financial credits, media content must incorporate one or more
ONDCP-promulgated "message platforms": the message to parents that your
children are at risk; the perception of the harm drugs inflict; and
parenting skills. The Times article qualified, she said, because "it talked
about them all."

The fact that the Times article was clearly a news article rather than a
feature did not affect Pechmann's decision to approve it -- nor,
apparently, did it trouble her superiors, who apparently rejected it only
because they were aware of the Times' policy against this type of editorial
submission.

A document called "Evaluation of TV Episodes for Match Credit," dated March
1, 2001, sheds fascinating light on the process by which the government
evaluates whether stories qualify for ad credits. The document was
co-written by Pechmann, who is an associate professor of marketing at the
University of California at Irvine, and Ph.D. candidate Maria Kniazeva,
also of U.C.-Irvine. Pechmann said that the media companies participating
in the program received feedback from the ONDCP's media campaign
contractor, Ogilvy & Mather, on how to qualify for credit. "O&M relays the
information I provide," she said. Pechmann, who began working for the ONDCP
last summer, is one of seven expert members of the Behavioral Change Expert
Panel, which is funded by the ONDCP. She is paid about $400 a day for her work.

Asked what the general criteria for matching approval are, Pechmann said,
"The general concept is an ad slot then gets released ... The material has
to be the same message as an ad because it's a substitute for the ad and
replaces the ad. That's the general concept."

In their evaluations, Pechmann and Kniazeva (who was working under
Pechmann's supervision) explain why they rejected nine of the 10 segments
that Channel One submitted to ONDCP for potential credit from the first
half of this past school year. Pechmann said she evaluates content for
potential "match credit" depending on whether it corresponds to five
strategic "message platforms," which she listed as "negative consequences
of marijuana; negative consequences of inhalants; normative education;
refusal skills; and the negative consequences of other drugs, say, Ecstasy
or alcohol." (The "normative education" platform refers to the fact that
kids may have an inflated view of the actual percentage of their peers who
use drugs.)

In a column labeled "Platform," each segment Pechmann rejected received a
"N/A," or non-applicable. The only segment accepted bears the entry "neg.
cons," which denotes the "negative consequences" of drug use.

That Pechmann placed marijuana at the top of her list is probably not
coincidental. A July 31, 2001, staff memo to the Democrats on the House
drug policy subcommittee refers to the media campaign's goals as "educating
and enabling youth to reject illegal drugs and preventing youth from
initiating use of drugs, with emphasis on marijuana and inhalants." In
fact, as reported in Salon, to a large degree the entire ONDCP media
campaign came about in response to the passage of medical marijuana
initiatives in California and Arizona in 1996 -- which former ONDCP head
Gen. Barry McCaffrey saw as a stalking horse for legalizing marijuana.

The 10 segments Pechmann and Kniazeva judged included five on the drug war
in Colombia; one on the concept of "graduated" driver's licenses (teenagers
earning full driving privileges in a series of steps); two on drugs in the
Olympics; and two on the death penalty.

Rejecting two stories that ran in August on the drug war in Colombia, the
document states, "No relevant message platform ... Suggests that the
involvement of U.S. military may be too extensive and may eventually result
in the deployment of American troops as in Vietnam."

Of these segments, Pechmann told Salon that deaths in Colombia don't have
enough resonance for kids in the United States. "The negative consequences
have to be for the youth actually using drugs," she said. (Comparing
Colombia to Vietnam would also not seem to be the wisest way to obtain
anti-drug monies.)

In turning down a Channel One story on Colombia aired in January of this
year, the evaluation states, "[The news story] suggests that demand for
drugs in U.S. is high, and that it is very hard to stop drug smugglers.
Could convey wrong message about drug norms." (Of course, other branches of
the government, such as Customs, acknowledge these very facts.)

In rejecting a story on steroid abuse in the Olympics that ran July 19,
2000, the evaluation states: "Though the health risks of steroids are
briefly mentioned, the program never explains who might experience such
risks." In other words, it's not enough to portray a problem with
world-class athletes -- it has to hit home to American teenagers. The
evaluation continues: "Youths might therefore conclude that limited steroid
use is widespread, which sends the wrong message about steroid-use norms."
The comment rejecting an "Olympic Doping" segment that ran on Sept. 27,
2000, reads: "... Suggests that the drug testing of Olympic athletes may be
overly harsh, overly stringent and thus unfair."

Pechmann and Kniazeva's rejection of a segment on the death penalty that
also ran on Sept. 27 makes it clear that only stories with crystal-clear,
narrowly focused negative messages about drugs are likely to be approved.
More troublingly, it also contains some language that suggests that
opinions on subjects that have nothing to do with drug use per se -- such
as the death penalty -- could affect their evaluation.

Their evaluation states: "Contains a tangential and mixed message. Focuses
on the problems with the death penalty, and states that sentencing is
unjust and often based on race and economic status ... The person on death
row who is interviewed did commit a murder as a teenager to obtain drug
money, but there is no indication that his murderous act was caused by a
drug induced state. The link to drugs is, in fact, very weak. The main
message is that the death penalty may be overly harsh."

And rejecting a second death penalty story that aired that same day, the
document states: "No relevant message platform. No discussion of drugs.
Discusses the possible innocence of death row inmates."

It may simply be that Pechmann and Kniazeva rejected the segment because
its focus was too much on the death penalty and not enough on drugs, not
because it questioned whether all death row inmates were guilty. Still,
their comments raise questions about subjective elements in the evaluation
process.

A viewing of the news segments Channel One showed during this school year's
second half, when seven of 11 submissions were approved, is equally
instructive. Rather than addressing broader social issues, such as the
Olympics and the death penalty, the later submissions are much more
narrowly focused and specifically address the ONDCP message platforms --
especially the one on negative consequences. Whether this remarkable shift
in editorial priorities came about because Channel One received feedback
from Ogilvy & Mather about how to get a "match," or simply figured that out
on its own, is unclear. The Feb. 2, 2001, offering shows a lot of
cool-looking anti-drug agents dangling on ropes from helicopters as they
bust a big marijuana grow in the wilds of California. One agent makes a
face and comments that the growers had (improbably) relieved themselves
inside their shelter. A DEA agent speaks of the "bigger business" marijuana
has become under the control of large international criminal organizations
and says that if a new drug appeared tomorrow -- call it "purple" -- they'd
make money off it. The segment notes that pot smokers now suffer from
increased levels of THC, which is said to have malign effects on the brain,
blood, reproductive and respiratory systems. The next day, the agents all
go off to bust another 10,000-plant operation, in the "never-ending battle"
against dangerous drugs.

In a story on heroin addiction that ran on the same date, an attractive
young female ex-addict says she became addicted to heroin the first time
she tried it. Then she amends that to say she was addicted the first couple
of times, or within a week. She got beaten up and robbed while buying
street heroin.

In a Feb. 22 report on Los Angeles narcotics police, an informant facing
incarceration herself is shown being dropped off by police to make
numerous, incriminating heroin buys from dealers, who are subsequently
shown to be arrested. (What happens to the informant subsequently is not
shown.) The effort is described as an "endless battle. It's not against
people, but against heroin. And it won't go away until the demand does."

A segment that ran a couple of days later concerns a pathetic teenager with
shaved head and eyebrows, who ended up having two heart attacks from
abusing cough syrup.

Despite the obvious good intentions of the anti-drug media campaign, some
of the content it pays for may actually do more harm than good. On March
20, 2001, Channel One aired a wildly irresponsible report on inhalants, one
that gave viewers -- some of whom are as young as 11 -- far too much
information about how to abuse household products. There were several shots
of the type of products involved, and then one or two shots of someone
spraying the product on a towel preparing to inhale it.

(Hearing of this, Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy said it
sounded like the glue-sniffing scare of the 1970s, when "the media
attention actually created a self-fulfilling prophecy.")

There were also two segments on the dangers of Ecstasy and its simulacrums
- -- featuring warnings that the drug cooks your organs "from the inside out"
- -- and one on a student at a rehab school who, after two years of sobriety,
might finally be ready to leave.

These approved news segments make up only part of the numerous -- and
highly remunerative -- Channel One features that have been approved by the
drug czar's office over the last three years. According to a report by
ONDCP/Zenith Media (one of the drug czar's ad agencies at the time), during
the 1998-99 school year Channel One received credits totaling $3,264,000
for what was described as "16 Substance Abuse Program Features (1.5 - 4
min)" that the company aired that school year. (It's unknown how many
segments were rejected by Pechmann's counterpart at the time.) In addition,
the report lists "6 - 20 min. Feature Videos" valued at $425,000. These
videos were submitted to free up in excess of two 30-second spots to be
sold to some other client. ONDCP/Zenith list the final valuation figure,
however, at five-sixths of $425,000, or $354,167. (Apparently only five of
these videos were completed.) The final "Proposed Match" item is "1 Town
Hall Meeting," scheduled for February, 1999, and also valued at $425,000,
or about the worth of two 30-second ads. Like the 16 news segments, this
item is listed as completed, delivering its full $425,000 value. The total
matching value of the features and the town hall meeting was $4,043,167.

The town hall meeting appears to have been basically a press release for
the ONDCP -- but a very lucrative one for Channel One to televise. The fall
1999 ONDCP media campaign newsletter gushes about the "enthusiastic,
energy-charged group of youngsters" who met with Gen. McCaffrey on March
17, 1999, in Channel One's Los Angeles studio, an event "produced by
Channel One as part of its pro bono commitment to the Campaign." The
newsletter continues: "The following day, Channel One's 12-minute newscast
[presumably actually 10, with two minutes of ads] was devoted exclusively
to the town hall event, benefiting students across the nation."

Students nationwide, says the ONDCP newsletter, benefited from McCaffrey's
insight into "... the responsibility of sports and entertainment
celebrities to serve as role models, drug use depictions in movies and
television, marijuana and other 'gateway' drugs ..." (Not incidentally,
prior to this newsletter's release, a March 1999 report commissioned by
McCaffrey himself by the federally funded Institute of Medicine declared
marijuana is not a "gateway" drug.)

Whether taxpayers got their $425,000 worth by underwriting a lengthy
program showing Gen. McCaffrey communing with a handpicked group of
enthusiastic youngsters is uncertain, but that isn't really the point. The
point is that it was overwhelmingly in Channel One's financial interest to
make these deals. To see why, one need only look at the huge ad buy the
ONDCP made -- and the financial obligation under which that deal placed
Channel One. According to the Zenith/ONDCP report, ONDCP's total Channel
One ad buy for the 1998-99 school year was $8.2 million. Because of
Congress' 50-cents-on-the-dollar requirement, Channel One therefore owed
the government $8.2 million in additional ad time. Channel One provided the
government 25 30-second ad slots (valued at $5.1 million), but that still
left $3.1 million that Channel One owed the White House by some means other
than ad slots. It made up the shortfall by submitting the features and town
hall meeting for approval -- thus freeing up millions of dollars of ad time
to sell to other clients. (The reason for the discrepancy between the $3.1
million Channel One owed the ONDCP and the $4.04 million valuation placed
on its various submissions is that since submitting content is speculative,
"overmatching," or having more content approved than ad space owed,
frequently results. This appears to have been the case here. Companies are
not reimbursed for overmatching.)

$3.1 million is a considerable chunk of change for a company that,
according to published reports, had 1999 profits of $30 million and faces
steep replacement costs for its decade-old hardware infrastructure.

Channel One is a natural target for (and partner of) the ONDCP because of
its unparalleled access to the media campaign's targeted age group of 11 to
18 years. (As a non-broadcast medium, Channel One is also not subject to
Federal Communications Commission enforcement of the federal law that
broadcasters must indicate with "concurrent notice" any financial
considerations, direct or indirect, paid to a program.) Pepsi-Cola vice
president C. J. Fraleigh told the New York Times that Channel One "reaches
teenagers as efficiently as the Super Bowl reaches men." He added, "There
is no other vehicle to get those sorts of numbers of teens on a daily
basis." Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum (and a stern Channel
One critic), quotes one of its ads as stating that it is "viewed by more
teens than any other program on television. Channel One's audience exceeds
the combined number of teens watching anything on television during
prime-time."

The company's daily program consists of 10 minutes of news stories and two
minutes of ads. Typically, it runs four ads per day, with each 30-second
spot costing about $200,000. Because of the ONDCP's heavy ad buy, its ads
are often in heavy rotation. According to Obligation, a group dedicated to
removing Channel One from the nation's schools, in one week in April this
year ONDCP ran ads on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and also ran
them the next week on Monday and Tuesday.

Those who believe that constantly exposing school-age kids to news shows
and town hall meetings featuring heavy-handed anti-drug messages is an
effective way to help prevent teenage drug abuse, and who are unworried
about any compromises on press freedom or integrity this might represent,
might salute Channel One for its efforts. But Channel One is not above
taking money from corporations that take a less gloomy view of recreational
drugs. It also ran commercials for the stoner movie "Dude, Where's My Car?"
- -- outraging Obligation president Jim Metrock, who fumed, "Channel One has
a lot of audacity hiding behind anti-drug ads while promoting a movie that
glamorizes drug use to young people."

Perhaps surprisingly, considering that fighting drug use among youths, even
using dubious methods, is a holy, mom-and-apple-pie subject, conservatives
and liberals alike blast the government's cash-for-propaganda program. The
notion of sub rosa government boodle rewarding covert anti-drug messages
exercises ideologues of all stripes: Drug reformer Zeese said his
conservative friends castigate him for all of his drug policy views except
one -- his opposition to government-paid media content.

No less a conservative icon than Schlafly said the practice "strikes me as
dishonest. I don't think the government or anyone else should buy time
where the source of the money is not identified." She added, "It strikes me
as trying to deceive the public."

Even Robert Maginnis, a committed drug warrior who is vice president for
policy of the conservative think tank the Family Research Council and
serves on the Parents Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, an ONDCP group,
expressed his doubts about the practice. While acknowledging that
ONDCP-rewarded content might have the salutary effect of turning kids from
drugs, he said he "wouldn't want ONDCP dictating programs upfront."

Then, reversing field, he said, "If it's tastefully done, if ONDCP is
paying for it, then I accept it" -- but he admitted he would prefer if it
was paid for by private rather than public money to reward programming. "I
probably don't have any real problem with it, but none of it is totally
clean -- that's my concern." Finally, Maginnis, who was touted this spring
as a candidate for drug czar, admitted, "I am conflicted."

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Graham Boyd, director of
the American Civil Liberties Union drug policy litigation project,
declared, "As Americans realize the failings of the drug war, the drug czar
has turned to the classic tactics of a dictatorship: paying the reputable
press to become a mouthpiece for government propaganda."

Other critics saved their harshest criticism for Channel One. Gary Ruskin,
executive director of the anti-commercial group Commercial Alert, said,
"The most important point is that Channel One has put a for-sale sign on
their so-called news operation. It underscores that they're not legitimate
and don't belong in the public schools. If they're selling their so-called
news to ONDCP, who else do they sell to?"

Arnold Fege, president of Public Advocacy for Kids, said, "It's a continued
validation of the fact that [Channel One's] news programming is a marketing
strategy."

Obligation Inc. president Metrock said, "I don't want the federal
government affecting any news content -- that's not their business. That
happens in totalitarian states, but at least there the people know it.
Here, we don't even know it -- it's behind the scenes, even though some of
the anti-drug messages might be good."

The ACLU's Boyd said that the most troubling thing about Channel One's
willingness to cut deals with the government over news programs was the
fact that the programs are viewed by children. He noted that kids are a
more vulnerable audience, particularly since the program is the only source
of news for many: "It's presented as truthful to a captive audience, and
they lack the filtering mechanisms of adults."

Cited and referenced notes added by the Editors at MAP:

Cited:

Office of National Drug Control Policy http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/

Common Sense for Drug Policy http://www.csdp.org/ http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

Center for Media Education http://www.cme.org/

Eagle Forum http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/channel-one/channel-one.html

Obligation http://www.obligation.org/

Family Research Council http://www.frc.org/

American Civil Liberties Union Drug Policy Litigation Project
http://www.aclu.org/issues/drugpolicy/hmdrugpolicy.html

Commercial Alert http://www.commercialalert.org/

Referenced:

Prime-Time Propaganda - A Salon special report.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n043/a09.html

The Drug War Gravy Train http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n428/a04.html

The Quiet Death Of Prime-Time Propaganda
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1161/a01.html