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US Media Blasts FCC’s Recommendations On Regulating TV Violence

TV bigwigs meeting at the Cable Show in Las Vegas this week had one topic on which they all seemed to agree – the Federal Communications Commission should keep its nose out of trying to regulate how much violence appears on US television.

Peter Chernin, chief operating officer of News Corp., said, “This is an example of government intrusiveness at nearly its worse.” He said it was the responsibility of parents to protect children from harmful content. The FCC had said in its recommendations to Congress that it agreed parents were the first line of defense,  but unfortunately parents weren’t doing the job even though they have been given the technical means to do so.

 Richard Parsons, Time Warner CEO, added, “There are entrenched and very vocal and well-funded minority groups that have a point of view and they are distorting this conversation in my view.” He was most likely referring to the Parents Television Council, a lobby group calling for media decency standards. It called the cable industry's position "self-serving" by wanting to protect profits. 

Parsons said the majority of Americans don’t want governmental interference on what they watch on television, but the industry must work harder to make the government understand that.

"What's being responsible is enabling adults to make adult choices and decisions about what their children see and tolerating choices that adults make for themselves. Democracies are messy but the best defense is to have a free exchange of ideas and individual choice. The last people in the world that you want meddling in this pond is the government,” Parson’s said."

The FCC, responding to a Congressional request, recommended last month that Congress could regulate violence on television without infringing upon freedom of speech. The medical community claims that the more violence children see on TV the more violent they themselves become. – May 10, 2007

Keywords:television violence, American television

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