Reading, writing and propaganda

According to the ONDCP/Zenith 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.)

That $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. (As a nonbroadcast 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 may 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 conservative think tank 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 away 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."

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