This web audio extra features an interview between Bob and Dr. Susan Linn, the director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. Last May, the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood began a letter-writing campaign that quickly culminated in the publisher Scholastic halting distribution of a set of academic materials called "The United States of Energy." The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood contends the materials exclusively highlighted the positives of coal as an energy source and provided no information about the environmental negatives. Scholastic has pledged to vet new corporate partners with a new review board and to strengthen the editorial review of subsequent sponsored supplemental materials.

Here's the (prompt) statement Scholastic released.

TRANSCRIPT:

BOB GARFIELD (INTRO):

Last May, the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood began a letter-writing campaign aimed at getting publisher Scholastic to stop distributing school materials sponsored by the American Coal Foundation. The materials were called “The United States of Energy.” The Campaign for Commerican Free Childhood campaign claimed that the materials were overly pro-coal --- and failed to balance the positives with the negatives of using coal as a source of energy. Soon after that campaign began, an article, then an Op-Ed, appeared in the New York Times…and soon after that Scholastic announced that it would stop distributing the materials, citing problems with the text and criticism from environmental groups.  Scholastic promised to vet new corporate partners with a new review board and to strengthen the editorial review of subsequent sponsored supplemental materials. Dr.  Susan Linn is the director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood.

SUSAN LINN:

These materials presented all of the benefits of coal and never mentioned any of the negatives. They never mentioned the environmental impact or the dangers of mining coal. I mean, even the miner that they show in their materials was completely not covered with coal dust.

BOB GARFIELD:

I guess you weren’t all that surprised because you’ve been around the bend with Scholastic in the past, have you not?

SUSAN LINN:

We get a lot of complaints about Scholastic. We did a review of all of the things that were sold in Scholastic book clubs for first and second graders and third and fourth graders, and what we discovered is that so many of the books are actually – and the products are actually – promoting media programs. I mean, they had things like a Dairy Queen video game, for instance.

BOB GARFIELD:

Now we naturally got in touch with scholastic and asked them to come on and talk about this episode. They declined, saying that a statement they issued was going to be their last word on the subject. I guess this is a pretty big triumph for the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood.

SUSAN LINN:

We launched this campaign on a Wednesday, and on Thursday, there was an article in the New York Times about the campaign and on Friday there was an editorial in the New York Times supporting our campaign. On Friday, Scholastic announced they were going to withdraw the coal materials and they were going to look into their whole division that’s called “in-school marketing” that creates corporate sponsored teaching materials.

I think what’s even more important is that after scholastic announced that they were withdrawing the campaign, we launched another campaign urging scholastic to drop their corporate sponsored teaching materials. What happened after that is we heard from Scholastic they were reducing the department by forty percent, and that most of the cuts were going to come out of their corporate sponsored teaching materials.

BOB GARFIELD:

Now, Scholastic goes way back. I mean, I very much remember excitedly ordering books from them. But I guess it has, in the intervening decades, become kind of a Trojan Horse with a very positive sounding name for a whole lot of dubious marketing initiatives. Has it ever been thus, or are we just now kind of getting sensitive to the less academic aspects of scholastic’s business

SUSAN LINN:

I also have wonderful memories of Scholastic, both as a child and also with my stepson and my daughter, and I found it really shocking that Scholastic was exploiting their trusted name. This is a company that has a stellar reputation that it built over years and years and years, and some time in the 90’s, began to exploit that reputation and essentially market to a captive audience of student, and, to use teachers as essentially salespeople for these products.

BOB GARFIELD:

Do you have a next target? Is there something else going on that will make, like, the enamel come off my teeth when I hear about it?

SUSAN LINN:

One of the things that we’ve done for years is taken on these baby media companies that claim to be educational. So we’re the organization that forced the Walt Disney company to offer refunds on Baby Einstein videos, and there’s a product coming out that we have our eye on that claims to be the first handheld device for babies, so that babies can have their own phone apps. And, you know, it’s supposed to be safe, babies can actually teethe on it.

BOB GARFIELD:

I have to tell you that when my 10-year-old was very small, we bought for her the Baby Einstein series of video tapes - this was before, I think, even Disney bought it - with the intention of making her a Mozart loving Van Gogh admiring mega-genius. It didn’t work.

SUSAN LINN:

[laughs] But that’s really important, Bob, because you know, here you are, you know, educated, aware, you have this show “On the Media,” you know you want to do what’s best for your children, and so people are buying these things.

BOB GARFIELD:

Susan, thank you.

SUSAN LINN:

I’m delighted to talk with you.

BOB GARFIELD:

Susan Linn is the director for the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood.