Word: charren
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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While the company, which is half owned by the Time Inc. Magazine Co., is confident the new plan will win approval from the 8,000 schools needed to make its $200 million investment pay off, Whittle still has not redressed his critics' biggest grievance. Says Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television: "The whole thing is still being paid for by selling kids to advertisers. The Trojan horse now has a golden harness...
Still, critics argue that children should not be exposed to sales pitches, especially in the classroom. "We don't want to bring up children to believe that what corporations think is right," says Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, based in Cambridge, Mass...
...Patricia Albjerg Graham, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Adds Bella Rosenberg, an official at the American Federation of Teachers: "By showing commercials, schools are implicitly endorsing the product." Others charge that principals are selling their students' souls for a pile of high- tech hardware. Says Peggy Charren, who heads Action for Children's Television: "They see stars in their eyes in the shape of television sets...
...adults are enthralled by Nickelodeon. Double Dare and another game show called Finders Keepers (now off the air) have been denounced for encouraging exhibitionism and greed -- the sort of schoolmarmish complaint that deserves a dousing with green slime. Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, praises the channel as a healthy alternative to network fare but is worried that some of its newer shows "may have gone a little overboard taking a Mad magazine approach...
...Charren is also concerned about the channel's expanding commercial ventures. Nickelodeon did not even run commercials before 1984; now it has entered the syndication market and is licensing its name for products ranging from shampoo to sneakers. "We are a channel for kids and an advocate for kids first," says Laybourne. "The licensing is only an afterthought." Such ventures, moreover, enable the channel to prosper and expand its programming -- a fact of TV life that Nickelodeon's savvy young viewers would certainly understand. Call it: Why You Can Do That on Television...