February 15, 2002
Responsibility
I was riding into work this morning, and on the radio (NPR), there was someone complaining about the quality of television/radio and how there was little if nothing they could do to control what was coming into their home. His main concern was how to protect his children from potentially offensive material or content that would be inappropriate for his young children to be exposed to.
Being a parent of a young child, I can understand his concern for making sure that his children aren't experiencing programming that is not suitable for them. Where I disagre is where the responsibility falls to protect against this. As long as the program being broadcast does not break any of the FCC or other regulatory bodies rules for transmission, each company has the right to program any shows that it feels will be in line with developing high ratings and therefore more advertising dollars for that company.
It is the responsibility of the people who access these programs via the device (be it a TV, radio or the Internet) in their home, office, car to control how these programs are viewed. For example, Trevor watches TV, and uses our computers all the time (both online and offline) on his own. Although it is convenient to be able to let him play on his own and give both Tara and myself some time to do other things, we vigilantly check to make sure that he has not switched to something that he should not be watching on his own, without supervision. Parents need to stop blaming the media for letting their children view objectionable items, and take control of what happens in their own homes.
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