Keith Kocinski

September 21, 2013
Keith Kocinski

Keith Kocinski – Helping Channel One convert school time into marketing time.

From Jim Metrock:

Channel One News has a new on-air personality. He is Keith Kocinski. 

With his work background and education it is surprising he settled for being a member of Channel One’s “News Team.” But alas, it’s a tough job market out there.  

Mr. Kocinski probably hasn’t taken the time to learn about Channel One’s commercial exploitation of students, or its terrible record of exploiting schoolchildren in America’s low-income communities. If he did know about Channel One’s ugly history, surely he would never have taken the job. You know sometimes it pays to do a Google search of a potential employer.

Hey Keith, check out this summary of the famous Widening the Gap study by Dr. Michael Morgan, University of Massachusetts Amherst:

Channel One in the Public Schools: Widening the Gaps.
Morgan, Michael
Channel One, an in-school television program, provides a centrally prepared, 10-minute daily newscast accompanied by 2 minutes of commercials. Several states ban Channel One because of concerns about providing advertisers such direct access to students within the walls of tax-supported public school buildings. This paper examines what kinds of schools and what sorts of communities choose to receive Channel One, and where Channel One fits in the pool of educational resources. The study used the data archives of Market Data Retrieval, which involves 17,344 public schools and covers grades 7 through 12, revealing some of the following items:
(1) Channel One is most often found in low income area schools, where it is often used instead of traditional educational materials when resources are scarcest;
(2) schools that can afford to spend more on their students are much less likely to utilize Channel One;
(3) Channel One is more often shown to the students who are least able to afford to buy all the products advertised, thus increasing a sense of alienation and frustration; and
(4) increasing commercialization of the culture and the schools suggests a shutting out of other voices and interests of the educational system.
The study suggests that the use of Channel One in low-income, socioeconomically deprived schools presents an illusion of providing more and better educational facilities which only contributes to widening the societal gap.
 
Does that shake you up, Keith?
 
No?  Well, how about this from the Alabama Department of Education:
 

CHANNEL ONE

COMPARISON OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS

AND PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

TOP TEN PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

SYSTEM EXPENDITURES CHANNEL ONE
MOUNTAIN BROOK CITY $6,241 NO
HOOVER CITY $5,732 NO
HUNTSVILLE CITY $5,471 NO
SHEFFIELD CITY $5,470 NO
FLORENCE CITY $5,422 NO
DECATUR CITY $5,410 NO
LINDEN CITY $5,374 YES
AUBURN CITY $5,328 NO
ANNISTON CITY $5,318 NO
COLBERT COUNTY $5,266 YES
    2 YES/ 8 NO

BOTTOM TEN PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

SYSTEM EXPENDITURES CHANNEL ONE
AUTAUGA COUNTY $3,674 YES
WINFIELD CITY $3,694 YES
TALLASSEE CITY $3,701 NO
JACKSONVILLE CITY $3,706 YES
ROANOKE CITY $3,732 YES
SAINT CLAIR COUNTY $3,733 YES
ELMORE COUNTY $3,758 YES
ONEONTA CITY $3,760 YES
HALEYVILLE CITY $3,819 YES
BLOUNT COUNTY $3,835 YES
    9 YES/ 1 NO

FINANCIAL DATA WAS TAKEN FROM 1997 REPORT CARDS.

CHANNEL ONE INFORMATION WAS TAKEN FROM STATE DEPARTMENT SURVEY,
JULY 30, 1998.
 
 
You see the schools that spend the least on students usually have Channel One in their classrooms. Schools in well-off communities generally don’t have Channel One. This is the way it is all across the country.  
 
Keith, you must be very happy with the paycheck you receive from Channel One, but if you think about it for any length of time you might get physically sick. Your payday comes off the backs of secondary school students compelled to watch your advertising.  Your company demands that students view the program that features you at least 90% of school days. That’s why you have any audience at all.  Your audience is contractually required to see your smiling face. Unlike your reporting in Wyoming where you earned your audience, you don’t have to do anything at Channel One to earn viewers. 
 
That 90% of school days results in real harm to real students. Who is going to give back the instructional week of school (32+ hours a year) that Channel One News takes away from these students? You? 
 
So welcome to Channel One News. If you hoped to become the next Jessica Kumari, wait until you see what Channel One has done to her journalism career. We’ll see that next week.
 

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