Channel One Focuses More on Style Than Substance, Study Says

The primary goal of Channel One is not to inform students but to amass a vast teenage audience so that high-priced air time can be sold to advertisers, a scholar who studied the televised news program asserts in a study released last week.

William Hoynes, a sociology professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., reviewed 36 of the classroom programs that were broadcast between November 1995 and March 1996.

His study did not examine the effects of Channel One in the classroom and on student learning, as other researchers have done with mixed conclusions. Instead, he analyzed the subject matter and presentation of the 96 news items...