Parents who wanted to protect their children from the violence of the Boston Marathon bombing were undermined by Channel One News. This bloody scene is a screen shot from the April 16th, middle school broadcast of Channel One.
6th grade students, just one year out of elementary school, see the same violent images on Channel One News as high school seniors see. Channel One’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to news stories shows their insensitivity to their preteen audience. Showing the same news stories to an audience ranging from 10 years-old students to 18 year-old students is irresponsible.
As the above scene is shown to students on April 16, Channel One’s Maggie Rulli dramatically says, “Runners eager to finish the race suddenly encountered badly injured victims and blood everywhere.” Why did she have to say “blood everywhere”? It was true of course, but would it have been OK for her to tell preteens that “there were limbs everywhere”? The story could have been told without those chilling words and without the video of bleeding victims. Ms. Rulli and her producers apparently didn’t care.
Note: Channel One’s wannabe reporters use their time at Channel One to help them get jobs later with respectable news gathering organizations. They make compilation videos of their best moments on Channel One News so they can add value to their resumes when they send them to potential employers. That’s one reason why reporters like Maggie Rulli, Julian Dujarric, Scott Evans, and Shelby Holliday forget their young audience. They are auditioning for their next job at the expense of America’s schoolchildren.
Julian Dujarric and the Terror in Boston
On Wednesday Channel One branded the bombing story “Terror in Boston.” That had to have been disturbing for many preteens. What were the other choices they voted down? Why did they need to call the story anything?
Above: Channel One News replays the explosions on Wednesday. Below: New victim footage is shown. Many in Channel One’s audience don’t have the life experience to handle such overwhelming sad images. Channel One is often shown as the school day begins. What a terrible way to start a school day. How can students not be affected by Channel One’s daily “Terror in Boston” ?Channel One has forgotten who their audience is.
Media literacy moment: Everything on a TV show is a construction. It is built by decisions made by reporters, producers and others in the process of creating content that has a purpose. Nothing randomly appears on the classroom TV show Channel One News. There are many different images that can be chosen from. Channel One’s people saw the above image of a child in a wheelchair and they thought that would be more powerful than another image.
You have to picture a conference room where Channel One reporters and producers are discussing what will make up their daily, taped show. A reporter may be wanting to include more graphic victim footage, a producer may be wanting more crying victims, the reporter on the scene in Boston might be on a speaker phone calling for some restraint. Everything children see on Channel One has a lot of thinking behind it and unfortunately for children and their parents that thinking is often wrong-headed and insensitive.
April 18, 2013: Channel One News replays the same scene it showed children on April 16. The same victim with blood very visible on the sidewalk.
In the same report on April 18, Channel One continued to replay the explosions. The thinking at Channel One must be: Hey, we have this footage, why not use it (and use it and use it).
Below: And of course on Friday, April 19 Channel One shows children yet again the bombing of marathon spectators.
Friday April 19, 2013 – Channel One continues to pound images of the Boston bombing into the heads of 10, 11, and 12 year-olds.
