[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[March 1, 1996]
[Pages 346-350]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 346]]


Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion With Families on Television 
Programming
March 1, 1996

    The President. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I might say, 
aren't we all glad to be in his big, beautiful office here. I love to 
come over here. I want to thank all of you for coming and to say to you 
and to the members of the media who are here, yesterday we heard for 2 
hours from a remarkable assemblage of people who are involved in the 
television industry: people who broadcast the programs; we heard from 
cable people; we heard from the people who write the programs, people 
who represent the actors, producers. It was an amazing assemblage of 
people who got together and came to Washington to announce that they had 
decided to develop a rating system for television programs like the 
movie rating system and that as the Vice President said, that that would 
be able to be used then when the V-chip becomes available in 
televisions.
    Now, the V-chip, of course, will start coming into televisions in a 
couple of years. And we replace about 25 million televisions a year, I 
think, in America, so it will quickly be a fixture in a significant 
percentage of America's televisions. But the rating system presumably 
will still be helpful for parents even before they have the V-chip.
    We wanted to have you in here today because we want to get a feel 
and we want the country to get a feel for what kinds of things parents 
feel about this rating system and the V-chip, what the young people feel 
about it, what you expect out of it. What do you think it will do? What 
won't it do? What would you like to see? How would you like to see it 
work? And of course, we have some advocates and professionals here who 
can talk about the impact of this on childrearing in America and on 
childhood.
    I must tell you, this is going to be a very complicated and 
difficult thing for these people in television to do in the sense that 
they have--there are many, many thousands of--tens of thousands of 
programs on all of these television stations, and as we get more cable 
channels, they will multiply exponentially. So the job of rating them is 
very different from the job of rating a couple of thousand movies a 
year. So as they undertake this task, I think it's important for the 
people in the entertainment industry and the public at large to get just 
a feel for how parents feel about it, how young people feel about it, 
and kind of how it should proceed, because they committed to have this 
done by the first of next year--no later than the first of next year, 
and perhaps sooner.
    So we really just felt we ought to have this conversation today, and 
we thank you for joining us. And maybe we ought to start with you, Mrs. 
Somson. If you could tell the press--everybody, if you could tell the 
press your name when you speak and how you happen to be here.

[At this point, parent Barbara Somson praised the rating system and the 
V-chip as tools for enforcement of parental standards for television 
programs watched by their children. Another parent expressed her hope 
that the V-chip and the industry meeting on ratings would be a first 
step toward production of better children's programming.]

    The President. I want to talk about the better programming in a 
minute because I think that's a big part of it, especially when I ask 
the young people about it. But I want to give the parents who are here a 
chance to say anything they'd like to say about the V-chip and the 
ratings issue, and then I want to come back and talk about the V-chip 
with you. I want you to tell your story.

[A parent said that the V-chip technology would assist individual 
families in defining their own viewing standards and let them vote for 
more family programming in a way that advertisers and programmers would 
understand.]

    The President. I'm so glad to hear you say that, because there 
were--you made two comments; I just want to say that to kind of resonate 
with the discussion we had with the people from the industry yesterday. 
Ted Turner said--and he went out and said in public, so I'm not saying 
anything in private he didn't say in public--that he strongly supported 
the rating system and what we were doing, what they were doing, but he 
did think it would be very costly. And

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I think it will obviously cost a lot of money to figure out how to do 
this and then review all these programs, to set up the system. But I 
think he meant he thought it would be costly over the long run because 
programs would not have the same viewership and their advertisers would 
drop.
    I think I see it more like you do; it's a voting system. It would be 
another--it's like the Nielsen ratings, except you won't have--this 
won't be a sample, you'll be able to actually know. You'll be able to at 
least sample all the V-chip homes--you take a representative sample--and 
it might actually change the content of programming so that the market, 
the market forces actually produce more positive programs.
    The other thing you said I think is important, a couple of the folks 
who were skeptical yesterday talked about how this wouldn't be a 
panacea, it wouldn't solve all the problems. And one of the men in the 
broadcasting meeting said--I mean, the industry meeting--he said, ``I'm 
going to take off my industry hat now and tell you that I'm a parent of 
three small children. I'm not looking for panaceas; I'm looking for a 
little help.'' And I think that's the way all of us who are parents look 
at this. There is no such thing as a panacea; we're looking for a little 
help.
    So you made that point, and I thought it was very good.

[A parent noted that the V-chip could replace her husband's use of the 
television's remote control to enforce their standards.]

    The President. Hillary almost fell off the chair when you said that, 
the keeper of the remote. [Laughter]
    Participant. So we're really delighted with both the V-chip and the 
rating system.

[Another parent said the combination was a vital first step for working 
parents who could not always be present when their children watched 
television. The Vice President then introduced Dr. Robert Phillips, 
deputy medical director, American Psychiatric Association, who discussed 
the powerful effect of gratuitous television violence on children and 
thanked the President and the Vice President for their efforts to 
address the problem.]

    The President. Hillary, do you want to comment on that, based on 
what you said in----

[Hillary Clinton said that more information on the link between 
television and child behavior would encourage parents to use the rating 
system and the V-chip in their homes.]

    The President. I want to get to the young people here. And let me 
tell you, it's okay if you disagree with us about this; we want to hear 
what you really think. But I want to ask the doctor one more question.
    Before I had this job, as I used to say, back when I had a life--
[laughter]--I was Governor of my State when I ran a big prison system 
and a big criminal justice system, obviously. And then I was attorney 
general, and before that I taught criminal law. So I've been following 
issues of crime and violence closely from that perspective for more than 
20 years now. For most of my time, it was an article of faith that 75 
percent of all the violent crimes in America were created by people 
between the ages of 17 and 26 and that there was almost a hormonal 
problem--if you could literally just get violent people and put them 
somewhere until they were 27, you could let them out and then they would 
not do that again--that there really almost seemed to be sea changes.
    Now we see an astonishing thing with the crime rate going down among 
people 18 and over and, I might add, drug use going down among people 
over 18, and violence going up among people under 18, as well as casual 
drug use. And I think there are plainly other reasons for increasing 
violent behavior among young people, including the lives that many of 
them have to live, virtually raising themselves on some of the meanest 
streets in America. But I gather from what you said that you really 
believe that the sort of cumulative, almost deadening impact of all this 
media-generated violence is at least partly the explanation for rising 
rates of violence among juveniles.

[Dr. Phillips concurred, pointing out that the increase in juvenile 
crime was a multifactorial problem. The Vice President noted that the 
upcoming White House Conference on Youth Violence would address other 
factors involved, thanked the industry for taking the steps that they 
agreed to, and suggested that the children might have a different 
perspective.]

    The President. I thought maybe we ought to start with Catherine next 
to me, because Catherine Murphy actually passed the first V-chip

[[Page 348]]

bill--[laughter]--in the United States of America. I think you all need 
to know that. It wasn't us; it was her. And so I think you ought to hear 
her story. And I'd like to know how you came to propose this legislation 
and what you think of it.

[High school student Catherine Murphy described her presentation of V-
chip legislation at the Girls Nation Senate she attended, mentioning 
that it passed but was then vetoed.]

    The President. They'll do that to you. [Laughter] Let me ask you 
this. Do you believe--I want to ask and then I want to go around to the 
students here--how do you think the V-chip should be used? And how much 
difference do you think there is in the age of the children in terms of 
the regulation of the programming?

[The participant described her family's television viewing habits and 
said that elementary school children watched too much television.]

    The President. You watch television a lot?

[A student responded that he only watched the news and a few other 
programs, but that his peers based their lives on television as a major 
activity and a model for behavior.]

    The President. If you've actually seen that in your friends who 
believe it----
    Participant. Yes.
    The President. ----that they're acting, they model what they do 
based on what they see on television.

[The participant confirmed that his peers modeled themselves after 
television characters, and he then endorsed the V-chip to help parents 
prevent such behavior.]

    The President. What about you? You're 11, right?

[A participant said that he spent hours playing on the computer and 
asked if there would be a V-chip for computers.]

    The President. Let's talk about that because that's going to be a 
big issue.

[The Vice President pointed out the need for an industry-wide system to 
rate computer games and to allow parents to screen the Internet to 
prevent children's access to inappropriate material. Other children then 
described their friends' television viewing habits.]

    The President. What do you think? Do you think your mother should 
have some influence over what you watch on television, or should you 
decide?

[A participant said that parents should have influence over what their 
children watched, and she then described classmates who annoyed her by 
pretending to be television characters.]

    The President. Playing out what they saw on TV.
    Participant. Right.
    The President. What about you all?

[A 13-year-old said that children tended to act out television shows 
instead of playing and expanding their imagination. A parent said that 
although watching television could be safer than some other activities, 
parents should encourage children to be critical viewers.]

    The President. What do you think?

[After a participant remarked that children could be scared by some 
television programs, the Vice President said the V-chip would give 
parents a tool to prevent that. Several parents stressed that older 
children should be taught to make good choices for themselves. Another 
parent pointed out the benefits of television.]

    The President. I'm so glad to hear you say that as well. But that--I 
don't know how much time we have left, but I think we ought to hear from 
the young people especially on the flip side of this because we believe 
it's important. We applaud the industry for developing the rating system 
and making it compatible with the V-chip. But the Children's Television 
Act, which was passed a couple of years ago, also calls upon producers 
of the television programs to develop more and better programs that will 
be appealing to children in a positive way.
    And I just want to make two points and then ask anybody who wants to 
comment to comment. There were two interesting ideas which came out 
yesterday. One is, the people who were there--not us; the Vice President 
and I just watched--but in the room there, in the industry, there was a 
genuine argument about whether particularly younger people would be as 
likely to watch any kind of educational program as they would a sort of 
a violent cartoon or something. And there was a woman there from the 
Discovery Channel who was a very powerful advocate and said, ``That is 
not true.

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If you make education entertaining, it will be watched.'' And she gave 
some examples. That's the first thing: Would you like to have more 
positive programming on television?
    The second thing I think's important to point out--one of you sort 
of inched up to it when you were talking about the Internet, young 
people on the computer--all these technologies, the Vice President knows 
100 times more about this than I do, but it looks to me like they're all 
merging. I mean, it won't be very long before you can call up any movie 
you want on your computer and before a lot of the things you see on your 
television screen are interactive. So that I think that basically we're 
watching, we're seeing a process--and that, by the way, will engage more 
young people because as they become more computer literate, if they have 
interactive programs on television, it will bring them up, or if they 
can call movies up on the computer, it will. So we really need to also 
focus on the positive things that we ought to be doing for our children.
    And so, what do you think? Do you think--would young people be just 
as likely to watch more constructive programs if they were genuinely 
entertaining, or do you believe there's just an inherent predisposition 
to watch the violence?

[A participant stated that interesting educational programming for young 
children could open doors of opportunity for them later on. Hillary 
Clinton pointed out the industry's concern that older children would not 
choose educational programming for themselves and asked the teens to 
respond. A 14-year-old stated that she and her friends preferred 
nonviolent movies.]

    Mrs. Clinton. You are an exception--[laughter]--based on the numbers 
that are out there.
    Participant. I think also it has to do with where I live and the 
family upbringing that I had.
    Mrs. Clinton. That's exactly right.

[Participants discussed targeting programming for high school children, 
the lack of good children's programming on broadcast television, and 
local campaigns to encourage better programming. The Vice President then 
concluded that the V-chip and the rating system would enable parents to 
make categorical viewing choices for their children rather than just 
pull the plug on the television.]

    The President. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for 
being here, especially the young people. Thank you, doctor, it's good to 
see you again.
    Dr. Phillips. Good to see you, Mr. President.
    The President. I want to thank Tipper Gore. When she first proposed 
a rating system for records, it was considered heresy. And now she's 
lived and worked hard at this long enough to make it a matter of 
American conventional wisdom in television.
    And let me say that for Hillary and for me, based on our experience 
over the last 15 or 20 years, maybe the most important reason to have 
this conversation today was the point that Catherine made when she first 
talked about her work for the V-chip, and that is that technology is 
intrinsically action-oriented but neither intrinsically good nor bad. It 
depends on the values and the action of the people in control of the 
technology. And while this gives more--the V-chip and the ratings 
information will give more power to parents, it's utterly useless unless 
they use it.
    And so what I'm hoping that this did today is to convince other 
people in other community settings and every community in our country to 
begin to discuss these matters and to begin to now, if their community 
does not have an advocacy group like the one you are involved in, 
perhaps to form one or at least figure out how friends and neighbors can 
get together and figure out how they're going to use this ratings 
information and figure out how they're going to use the V-chip as the V-
chip comes in.
    But I was glad to hear Mrs. Somson say what she did about this. You 
don't have to wait for the V-chip to make use of the ratings 
information. You know, most parents are still influenced--most children 
still have some influence about what their parents say, and parents are 
influenced by their children. So I just want to encourage that we need 
that every place in America.
    But this law that was passed and this remarkable effort by the 
industry will not amount to a hill of beans if the parents do not take 
action in their homes and if in each community the community activists 
who know how to make the most of this don't work with the parents to do 
it.
    Thanks a lot. It's great to see you.

[[Page 350]]

Note: The President spoke at 9:55 a.m. in the Vice President's 
Ceremonial Office in the Old Executive Office Building. In his remarks, 
he referred to Ted Turner, chief executive officer and president, Turner 
Broadcasting Service, Inc.