PARKLAND, FLA. — In light of the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, the Parents Television Council is calling on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to conduct a review of the 1998 Report and Order establishing the V-chip, TV content ratings system, and the Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board.
In a letter addressed to Pai, the PTC urges the FCC to move forward on this based on findings in a Safe Schools Commission report that cites media ratings as one issue to explore for the prevention of future violence.
Writing directly to Pai, PTC President Tim Winter urges him to move forward on a review of the 20-year-old R&O.
He points to the Department of Education’s Safe Schools Commission report issued in December 2018, which points to “misleading and inaccurate ratings” for programs — the “TV-Y” you’d see for a program suitable for all ages of viewers, not the Nielsen results.
It’s part of a broader discussions some have with respect to the sharp rise in gun violence in the U.S. — one that includes video games featuring war zones, post-apocalyptic shooting rampages, and other themes that put the focus on firearms use.
For Winter, an urgent renewal of his call for a V-Chip, content ratings and monitoring board review is warranted. With the events of Parkland now one year old, a discussion of America’s “entertainment media culture that is saturated in bloody gun violence” is necessary.
Winter says, “Shortly after the Parkland shooting, President Trump made public reference to media violence and the need for effective measures to help parents protect their children from it. The Parents Television Council swiftly produced a research report documenting the amount of gun violence on prime-time broadcast television and noted that all of it was rated as appropriate for children as young as fourteen, and in some cases, even younger. Additionally, almost 61% of the episodes contained violence; and 39% contained violence and guns.”
By way of comparison, research conducted by the PTC in 2013 during the month following a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., found that on prime-time broadcast TV shows, nearly half contained violence; almost a third contained violence and guns.
This shows, Winter says, that TV violence has increased, not decreased, since the Sandy Hook tragedy.
