🚀 go-pugleaf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 01 Aug 94 21:37 PDT
From: EcoNet * IGC * APC <econet@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Channel One Headed for Breakup

/* Written  7:19 PM  Aug  1, 1994 by econet in igc:edu.popular */
/* ---------- "Channel One Headed for Breakup" ---------- */

From: Marianne Manilov <unplug>

UNPLUG ACTION ALERT:

"Whittle's Bridges Falling Down,"

Read the July 18, 1994 front-page headline of Advertising Age. The article
stated that Channel One's owner Whittle Communications, which defaulted
last month on a $100 million bridge loan and is selling its Medical News
Network due to a lack of advertisers, "is headed for imminent breakup."
Wall Street Journal has reported that Whittle needs $50 million to keep
its Edison Project going and is trying to sell half of Channel One to
Goldman, Sachs & Co. to alleviate debt.  The Knoxville News-Sentinel
reported that Whittle's Tennessee headquarters is for sale to the federal
government at a price half its value. Another Knoxville reporter referred
to Whittle as the "vanishing cat in Alice and Wonderland."

What does this mean to students, teachers, parents and other people who
want to protect public education from for-profit companies that seek to
exploit it?  IT MEANS WE ARE WINNING!  Our opposition to classroom
commercialism and Channel One--a 12-minute commercial news program that
auctions-off learning time to the makers of junk food and designer
sneakers--is having a demonstrable effect.  And it means now is the time
to increase the pressure on Channel One advertisers.

UNPLUG--a national youth organization working for commercial-free, equal
education--and the National Education Association have mounted an
educational effort to encourage divestment of state school employee
pension funds from companies which advertise on Channel One.  A Washington
Post reporter recently called this divestment effort "the most determined
effort yet to kill [Whittle's] money-maker, the classroom television news
service Channel One." And, as significantly, schools and school districts
across the country are deciding not to renew their contracts with Channel
One.

We must ask Reebok and McDonald's not to advertise on Channel One when
school starts this year.  We're starting with these two companies because
1) Reebok has a stated corporate commitment to social responsibility and
human rights and Channel One compromises this commitment, and 2) McDonalds
just started advertising on Channel One last year, three years after
President, Ed Rensi, said that the program "isn't a good trade-off for the
schools or students."

Call and write McDonald's and Reebok today, then call your
friends, relatives, teachers, neighbors--everyone you can--and ask
them to do the same.  Tell them why you think Channel One is a bad
idea for education and for advertisers (because so many students
hate the program) and that they should stop advertising on Channel
One as of this school year.  It has never been more important to
take action for equal, commercial-free education.

	% Reebok:  write -- Paul Fireman, President and CEO,
	Reebok, 100 Technology Center Drive, Stoughton, MA  02072;
	or call -- (800) 843-4444.

	% McDonaldUs:  write -- Ed Rensi, President, McDonalds
	Corp., McDonaldUs Plaza, Oak Brook, IL  60521; or call --
	(708) 575-3000.  [McDUs has no toll-free #.]

For more information, contact UNPLUG at (510) 268-1100 or (800)
UNPLUG-1.