Channel One Impact of Knowledge Gauged

By Mark Walsh

The Channel One classroom television news show did not significantly increase the current-events knowledge of most high-school student viewers, according to the results of a one-year study released last week.

The study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that teachers and students overwhelmingly liked the 12-minute daily show, but that "its effect on the measured current-events knowledge of the average viewer was quite small.''

Whittle Communications of Knoxville, Tenn., the producer of Channel One, commissioned the research. But the study's co-author emphasized that...