[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[July 10, 1995]
[Pages 1068-1069]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1068]]


Remarks at the Closing of Session II of the Family Re-Union IV 
Conference in Nashville
July 10, 1995

    I just want to say one thing, if I might. Let me, first of all, 
start by saying thank you to all of you for being here and for caring 
enough about this subject to be here and for giving us a chance to 
discuss this issue in a nonpolitical atmosphere of good citizenship. I 
thank you for that. I also thank you for what you've done.

    But I'd like to comment if I could on what's been said and what has 
not been said and end with something Mr. Selleck said. First of all, we 
know that we need to support and get more of the kind of programming 
reflected on the Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, ``Christy,'' the Fox 
Children's Network, and public television, and whoever I left out. We 
know that, we know we need that.

    Secondly, we know we need some guideposts to the future which might 
be what John Cook talked about or another kind of rating system. And at 
least some of us would like to see some parents be able to turn some 
things off now and again, which is why we like the V channel.

    Then you get to the next level, which is what the gentleman from the 
Ad Council talked about. And I agree with--we've got to make sure that 
no matter how far we go with technology, we save some private space 
along the way. Then you get to the question of whether we could 
systematically move the market system a little bit, to take off on 
Gary's comment.

    His is a significant commitment, the Ad Council has made, for two 
reasons. One is, $8 billion over 8 years is $800 million a year. I'll 
tell you how much that is; I just sat there and figured it out. In the 
Presidential elections we spend about $100 million in the general 
election, telling you how great we are, how terrible our opponents are, 
and you see a lot of our ads. So if you spend $800 million a year and 
you do it right, you can make an impact. That's not an insignificant 
thing, and it should be lauded.

    But the other suggestion you made, coming back to what Mr. Selleck 
said, is that the people who do all this should not be defensive; they 
should be open. They should realize there are no simple answers. A few 
years ago, there was an attempt to do what Oprah Winfrey's doing on her 
own on a systematic basis through all different kinds of television 
shows through education. I saw you out there, John. Do you remember when 
I came out there to Hollywood and they had me give a little speech, 
because there was an organized effort to try to say, let's take a year 
and put some positive message about education in all of our programs, 
our cops and robbers programs, our cowboy programs, our--everything. In 
this case, it would be the Internet and all that.

    And they did it for a year. I don't know that we had any way of 
measuring what the results were, but I do know what the gentleman from 
the Ad Council said makes a lot of sense. What I hope will happen is, in 
the end, that there will be some systematic effort which will not only 
have more good programs like ``Christy'' on the air, but which will make 
everybody think before they put their police show on the air or their 
you-name-it, whatever show it is: What picture of women am I presenting 
to America; what message am I sending to these kids about violence; what 
am I doing?

    In other words, if we're going to change the American culture, we 
have to somehow change the media culture. And we have to do it without 
finger pointing, but we've got to be honest about it.

    I think this Ad Council commitment is a good one, but I think what 
we need to do--and maybe Gary's right, maybe you have to change the 
people running the show a little bit--but we need a systematic debate 
there about what we don't do and what we do do in our regular 
programming. I really think that's important. I think if we leave that 
out, we'll leave a big piece of this undone. And I thank you for being 
willing to deal with that.

    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:15 p.m. in Polk Theater at the Tennessee 
Performing Arts Center. In his remarks, he referred to actor Tom 
Selleck;

[[Page 1069]]

John Cook, executive vice president of corporate affairs, Walt Disney 
Co.; Gary David Goldberg, television writer and producer; and Oprah 
Winfrey, television talk show host. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.