Time For TV Take Responsibility On Violence

Last Sunday in Newtown, Conn., the president told grieving parents: “I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”

Why can’t people who run the television business say that? 

President Obama meant, as has been reported, that he could nimbly stiffen some Justice Department gun policies and other protections without waiting for Congress to pass a law. And he could use his office as a bully pulpit. 

Obama has fast-tracked a commission, chaired by Vice President Biden, to look into all the ways the nation could change our guns-and-violence culture, and that will include a look into how media feeds the apparently real hunger for violent fare. That’s not going to be so nimble.

Coming from the corporate suite, there should be new, explicit directives about what kind of network promos for violent shows run on the air—and when, or even whether, some shows should just ease up on crazed or brazen-killer characters.

Advertisers should say, no, we don’t want our message in that show. Program executives should be reminded that while movies have raised the bar on “realistic” scenes of violence, television has a far more intimate and complicated relationship in the American home.

Way back in the 1950s and all the way to 1976, the NAB had a TV Code that many stations adhered to. The code, publicized frequently on air, promised viewers that stations would be sensitive to what kind of fare they were bringing into your home. Crime was not to be glorified; nor were criminals. Kids weren’t victimized. Depicting the way crimes were plotted out and  executed was supposed to be limited. Probably it made TV lame and tame (and a court eventually said it violated anti-trust laws).

But the idea of a station or network making a pledge to be sensitive, backed up by some concrete proof that the pledge was something more than just another assignment  for the PR department, would be an important start. Certainly, viewers have choices and responsibilities. So do programmers. As TV matured, primetime has hardened. The pendulum has swung pretty far in the other direction since the code days.  

Ironically, given the circumstances now, a TV Code commercial still found on the Internet (below) has a voiceover script saying all the right things, but the commercial itself shows a little boy at play aiming a stick as a rifle from a hilltop.

I’ve met dozens of program executives who proudly tell me they limit when and what their children watch. If you tell them that millions of parents don’t do that, their indifferent reaction says to me, well, that’s not my problem.

Now it is.

This is not unreasonable. All kinds of businesses protect consumers from using their product stupidly. All kinds of businesses also set up boundaries they could easily break.

Maybe television thinks it does a pretty good job at it, too. It should look again.    

At the big networks and so-called cable news networks, they’ve got the whole non-crucial month of January to devote to primetime documentaries.

Spend an hour or two of prime time looking at gun laws, the power of the NRA, the myths of gun-law proponents and foes, and the problems created by the failure of the crumbling family structure, mental health and social agencies.

Take a look at video games. Why not a look at how hate groups now have a World Wide Web’s worth of opportunity to spew violence-tinged content? Why not dissect what the Second Amendment is really all about? Spend whole hours on these topics, not two minutes on the evening news.

Why not a daring expose of the television industry’s own penchant for violence? Jeff Zucker, the new head of CNN, but once the head of NBC, could cause a sensation with a never-before-seen-on-TV-exclusive confession from a TV insider explaining how one major network played the violence game for fun and profit. You’d say, “Why, if he did that he’d never work in this business again.” But he’s Jeff Zucker. Of course he would.

On the local news, let’s rethink wall to wall coverage of one “senseless” shooting after another? When was the last time a station ever stepped back and really examined why carnage reigns on the streets of Philadelphia or Chicago or New Orleans? They’re citizens of those towns. Don’t they ever wonder, why is this our lead story night after night? Why not deeper? Smarter?

Compliance would take more than upping the frequency of The More You Know-type PSAs about parental responsibility. But I’m afraid the network response will be a new batch of ads reminding parents about that V-chip in their set. That is the usual let-them-eat-cake response.

Some entities already took the typical half measures. Fox, for one, pulled episodes of Family Guy and American Dad, and Syfy rescheduled Haven after the tragedy because, it was explained, the particular episodes might have seemed insensitive.

So when is the good time to resume show insensitive programming? Since the Gabby Giffords shooting in Tucson on January 8, 2011, there have 64 people murdered in mass shootings, not counting Newtown.

The dates are spaced throughout in 2012. Mass shootings have occurred on Feb. 27, April 2, April 6, May 29, July 20, Aug. 5, Sept. 27 and Dec. 11.

What’s more every day, about 45 people are murdered in the United States in ways that seem more ordinary than the mass killings, except to the victim and relatives. They probably would welcome some sensitivity.

Heck, with stats like that, you could be sensitive every day. But no law is necessary. Just use whatever power your office holds.

P.J. Bednarski, former executive editor of Broadcasting & Cable and a longtime TV critic, frequently contributes to TVNewscheck. He also writes a daily VidBlog about online video for Mediapost.com.