Hearings Scheduled On TV's Impact On Kids
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/18/2007 4:28:00 AM MT
Whether it's cigarettes in the movies and TV, snack food ads in commercials, or violence on TV, the summer is heating up for Democrat-led hearings on the media's impact on kids.
The Senate Commerce Committee has made it official. It will hold a hearing June 26 on media violence.
The hearing is on the impact of violent TV programming on kids, prompted by the FCC violence report to Congress that suggested legislators could give the FCC the power to regulate violence as it doesn indecency, and that mandating a la carte cable would be another way to give parents more control of their TV channels.
Lawrence Tribe, a top First Amendment attorney hired by major communications trade associations to make their content case in Washington, is widely expected to testify at the hearing.
And over on the House side, the Telecommunications Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for this Friday (June 22) on "The Images Kids See On The Screen" that, in addition to violence, will look at depictions of smoking and marketing of snack/junk foods to kids.
Senator Jay Rockefeller coudl introduce his long-awaited bill giving the FCC the authority to regulate TV violence, though it has yet to surface and its prospects would not appear to be great given the difficutly in defining TV violence and a federal court's recent decision calling into question the FCC's enforcement of indecency).
There is no specific legislation attached to the hearing in the House subcommittee, which is headed by Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
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