Rockefeller calls for crackdown on TV violence

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) subjected his fellow Commerce Committee members to a video montage of gruesome and sexually explicit scenes aired on cable and broadcast channels at a hearing yesterday in an attempt to gather support for his legislation to rein in television violence.

So disturbing was the footage that Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) interrupted the viewing to beg Rockefeller, who was acting as chairman, to turn it off: “We’ve seen enough, Mr. Chairman. We all know what goes on there, and it’s disgusting.”
Rockefeller obliged.  

{mosads}Although the gambit packed a punch in the standing-room-only hearing room, it may not have tempered the stance of some members that censoring even the most graphic television violence is an impractical goal that could run afoul of free-speech protections.

“I share your feelings on this but I think we need to tread a lot more softly than you indicate,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the vice chairman of the panel, said.

He pointed to the range of devices, from iPods to computers, from which children can download movies today: “The kids will go where they have to go to watch what they want to watch.”

Lautenberg warned that it would be hard to curb violence in TV shows because the entertainment industry is only responding to roaring demand for such graphic material. “We tried regulating behavior before. It was called Prohibition and it didn’t endure because of the public appetite,” he said.

Rockefeller plans to reintroduce legislation in July to crack down on excessively violent programming. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has long regulated “indecent” or sexually explicit speech broadcast over the air but has never had the authority to penalize broadcasters for violent programming.  

 The bill will be similar to legislation, introduced by the senator in the last Congress, that would empower the FCC to ban such programming during children’s viewing hours and fine broadcasters for violations. That bill attracted only one cosponsor.

At the hearing, Rockefeller reproached broadcasters for not taking steps to clean up their content. “Instead, we have the industry blaming parents for their lack of oversight of their children’s television viewing. I think this is cowardly,” he said.

A crucial component for crafting a law to regulate television violence is defining exactly what it is. The FCC released a report in April recommending that Congress enact a law giving it the power to regulate such television content, but stopped short of giving a definition.

Rockefeller was a “little disappointed” the FCC didn’t go further, according to spokesman Steven Broderick. “Clearly, the agency charged with regulating the violence on TV should be the one to come up with the definition,” Broderick said.  

At the hearing, Rockefeller admitted that defining indecency was difficult. But he insisted: “We can define these lines and put bright markers on them. … Doing nothing on this is not an option.”

A plethora of evidence links exposure to excessive violence on television to violent behavior in children, according to hearing witnesses Dale Kunkel, an expert on media violence at the University of Arizona, and Jeff J. McIntyre of the American Psychological Association. They suggested that V-chip blocking technologies and broadcaster ratings systems are inadequate tools to guard children from such graphic content.

But the president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Company, Peter Ligouri, defended his company’s ratings system at the hearing, implying that parents are the ultimate shield against explicit and violent content.

“Parents have the information, the tools and, above all, the responsibility, to decide which television shows are appropriate for their children,” he said.

First Amendment experts doubt that a law regulating violence on television would pass muster in the courts. The Supreme Court has ruled that obscene or sexually graphic content is not protected speech under the Constitution, argued Laurence H. Tribe, a renowned constitutional expert from Harvard who also spoke at the hearing.

But an attempt to regulate the violent act like the sexually explicit act “is not going to wash with the Supreme Court,” he said.