On June 26, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing examining the effect of violence in the media on children, with particular attention on television programming. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a similar hearing on June 22 (see The Source, 6/22/07).
In his opening statement, Vice Chair John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) said, “After years of inadequate and ineffective voluntary efforts by the industry, we are no closer to solving the problem of indecent and violent programming for children despite claims that parents have many tools at their disposal to address unwanted programming. Children today are being subjected to an unprecedented level of violent television content. There is no doubt it is coarsening our culture. I fear, too, that it is weakening our society.” Sen. Rockefeller described current programming as a “race to the bottom” that is causing an increase in aggressive behavior among children. He continued, “Instead of addressing the problem too much violent programming on television the industry seeks to hide behind ineffective band-aids of voluntary action and providing parents more ‘tools’. Parents do not want more tools. They want the content off the air…I know that Congress has been reluctant to take on the issue of violence because defining decency is difficult. I will again reintroduce my legislation, because we must address this issue. I understand that these are hard lines to draw, but just because they are difficult doesn’t mean that we should stand by and do nothing. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we have a moral obligation to tackle television violence and arm our parents with the tools to make their children safer.”
Ranking Member Ted Stevens (R-AK) said, “I think we have to tread a lot softer than [Sen. Rockefeller] indicate[s], if we can. Because the constitutional restraints that have been imposed upon us in the past will certainly be restrained upon us if we go too far in terms of trying to regulate this industry, which is so vast and so diverse.” Raising concerns regarding First Amendment protections, he said, “Clearly the Supreme Court has laid down some guidelines in the past and I fear that if we go beyond the concept of trying to make sure that we have a rating program that works and a program that works as far as giving parents every tool they need to protect the smaller children, by the time they get to the teens, they’ve got all these devices today that give them access to actual broadcasts from outside the country. It is not something that is easily regulated and the more that we put down too harsh rules on televisions that are in their home; the more they are going to acquire the facilities, the capability, and the technology to watch what they want to watch.” Sen. Stevens concluded by relaying a personal anecdote: “My attempt to restrain my children watching programs is that I just didn’t buy the television and as you know, the mayor lived about three houses down the block and he finally stopped me and said, ‘Stevens, why are your kids always in my front room?’ He had a television. It’s a simple matter; children will go where they want to go, to watch what they want to watch. As a practical matter, what we’ve got to do is be mindful of the Constitution and do our best to put down the kind of regulation that will work. I do hope that we can achieve that.”
President of the Parents Television Council (PTC) Tim Winter told the committee that last year’s television season was “the most violent that the PTC has ever recorded averaging 4.41 instances of violence per hour during prime time, or one instance every 13 and a half minutes an increase of 75 percent since the 1998 television season.” Mr. Winter called on the committee to pass regulations, saying that parental controls, such as the V-Chip, are ineffective. The PTC’s research “has repeatedly concluded that the industry’s application of [the television ratings system] is arbitrary, inconsistent, capricious, and self-serving,” he said. Mr. Winter continued, “In a study we released this past April, content ratings descriptors were either inaccurate or missing two-thirds of the time. During the study period, not one single program on primetime broadcast television was rated TV-MA, meaning that the networks felt all of their content was appropriate for children as young as 14.” He concluded, saying, “Mr. Chairman, I know in my heart that the industry is capable of solving this issue if they truly wanted to. The people I worked with during my twenty-plus years in the industry are brilliant and creative…But the question is: will they help to solve this issue today? If the National Rifle Association can help the Congress pass consensus gun control legislation, then I believe Hollywood can help the Congress deal with this issue. Moreover, it must.”
Peter Liguori, president of entertainment for the Fox Broadcasting Company, told the committee that his network “takes seriously our responsibility to inform viewers about our content.” He described Fox’s efforts to label each episode of each show with age-appropriate (e.g., TV-PG or TV-14) and content-specific (e.g., V for violence, or S for sexual content) warnings. “Teamed with our efforts, parents have a host of technical and informational tools at their disposal, including the V-Chip, cable and satellite parental controls, and third-party rating tools. And, above all, let’s not forget the most effective and widely-used tool: parents’ individual discretion,” he said. Mr. Liguori expressed concern about using statutes or regulations to govern television content, saying, “Given the inherent difficulty of defining violence and drawing lines about what is appropriate, any attempt to regulate the depiction of violence seemingly would be found unconstitutional. And it would have a profound chilling effect on the creative community’s ability to produce authentic programming reflective of the world we live in…Should we as parents, nonetheless, do our jobs to minimize our kids’ exposure to violent television? ABSOLUTELY. But this is the job of parents, not the government.”
Also testifying were: Dale Kunkel, a professor at the University of Arizona; Jeff McIntyre, the senior legislative and federal affairs officer at the American Psychological Association; and Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School.
