TO REFLECT AND SHAPE AMERICA.................

[Frank Haertlein]

Per a recent LA Times article.

".....the unique place broadcasting TV occupies in American society. Distributed free to 99% of the nations living rooms, the medium has historically had the ability like no other to reflect and shape America by creating shared experiences----serving as not just entertainment, but social instrument"

The key here are the words "SERVING NOT ONLY AS ENTERTAINMENT, BUT SOCIAL INSTRUMENT"

We have here the root, the key, to why Americans hold the opinions and views they have. With this statement the LA Times has revealed the influence and effect of the media on American society. The media does good by influencing Americans to accept diversity, peoples differences....to accept each other regardless of differences. It has also demonized gun owners as responsible for all the evils our society faces. It has promulgated the view that gun owners are all malitia wackos bent on the destruction of the US government. That all gun owners are responsible for the likes of Littleton, Johnsbourough, West Peduka, etc. Because gun owners want to protect their rights we have given tacit approval to these children killing children because we don't lock up our guns, because we have a culture of hunting, because we have a culture of guns and freedom. Our support for the right to bear arms is responsible for this modern phenomena of children killing children in our schools. All this if you believe the media. Sitcoms, documentaries, news reports, television shows, all, demonize the gun rights activist as supporters of David Koresh and Waco and by association label us all as wackos.

The most important point here is that "the medium has historically had the ability, like no other, to reflect and shape America"

So then where does the negative perception of gun owners come from?

Who or what is behind the demonizing of American gun owners?

Who seeks to remove our second amendment rights by the use of the first amendment?

TO SHAPE AMERICA, that is the goal of the media, that is the goal of the liberal press and the media establishment. Your right to bear arms does not fit into their view of the NEW SOCIETY.

It does not matter the image that you may try to impress on the media, it does not matter how ethical of a hunter you may be, it does not matter the degree to which you hold nature in reverence, it does not matter how responsible you may be as a gun owner. The media is attempting to cast all gun owners as irresponsible, to show that guns do not have a place among decent society.

This will continue, it will be hammered home to countless Americans who feel for nothing as long as they are comfortable in their easy chairs and have food in their belly while sitting in front of the boob tube.

The media is serving as not just entertainment, but social instrument to promote the views and opinions of the liberal, left anti-gun crowd. Gun owners and freedom rights activists are doomed under this scenario as we cannot fight the negative portraials of gun owners. Eventually, we will loose this battle as gun owners do not sit in control of the various media, gun owners have no control over the rights, hearts and minds of the vast majority of the American people. We are refused advertising to promote a pro gun message, we are villified on the talk shows, we are cast into the most negative light possible. We have, in reality, little chance at freedom of expression when we are denied the right to buy air time to speek our point of view.

In reality we don't have freedom of speech unless we have enough money to outright own major media outlets that would at least give us some mesure of control. Yet we harp about freedom of speech as the all important right.

I ask what is more important? Our first or second amendment rights? Especially since gun owners are villified, demonized and cast as the bad guys responsible for the evils of society while being denied the right to equal free speech.

The liberal media is our enemy!

[This message has been edited by Frank Haertlein (edited July 21, 1999).]

 

[Dennis]

Frank,
Sit back, fasten your seatbelt. OK? Ready?

I agree.

I'm not against the media expressing their opinions, but opinions should be clearly identified as such.

Unfortunately, most Americans want excitement and controversy (i.e. OTHER people fighting, of course). Therefore the media "slant" the news to get ratings and, consequently, more money.

How do we bring about change for more accurate journalism?

Stumped Grump

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited July 21, 1999).]

 

[Frank Haertlein]

This morning I picked up the local paper and read the following..........

Hollywood Can No Longer Abdicate Its Responsibility to Kids

American parents today are deeply worried about their children’s exposure to an increasingly toxic popular culture. Events in Littleton, Colorado, are only the most recent reminder that something is deeply amiss in our media age. Violence and explicit sexual content in television, films, music, and video games have escalated sharply in recent years. Children of all ages are now being exposed to a barrage of images and words that threaten not only to rob them of normal childhood innocence, but also to distort their view of reality and even undermine their character growth.

These concerns know no political or partisan boundaries. According to a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, 76 percent of adults agree that TV, movies, and popular music are negative influences on children. Seventy-five percent report that they make efforts to protect children from such harmful influences. Nearly the same number--73 percent--say shielding children from the negative influences of today’s media culture is "nearly impossible."

Moreover, there is a growing public appreciation of the link between our excessively violent and degrading entertainment culture and the horrifying new crimes we see emerging among our young: schoolchildren gunning down their teachers and fellow students en masse, killing sprees inspired by self-indulgently violent films, teenagers murdering their babies only to return to dance at the prom.

Clearly, there is no simple causation at work here. Many factors are contributing to the crisis engulfing many of our children--negligent parenting, ineffective schools, divorce and family disintegration, and the ready availability of firearms. All are important, and all should be a part of our national conversation on this problem. But surely no one can argue that our entertainment culture should be exempt from the discussion.

Among researchers, the proposition that entertainment violence adversely influences attitudes and behavior is no longer controversial; there is overwhelming evidence of its harmful effects. Numerous studies show that degrading images of violence and sex have a desensitizing effect. Nowhere is the threat greater than to our at-risk youth--youngsters whose broken homes or disadvantaged environments make them acutely susceptible to acting upon impulses shaped by violent and dehumanizing media imagery.

Many factors, including the drive for profit in an increasingly competitive media marketplace, are contributing the downward spiral in entertainment and the disappearance of even minimum standards.

In the past, the entertainment industry was more conscious of its unique responsibility for the health of our culture. For thirty years, television broadcasters lived by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Television Code, which detailed broadcasters’ responsibilities to the community, to children, and to society and prescribed specific standards. For many years this voluntary code set boundaries that enabled television to thrive as a creative medium without causing undue damage to the bedrock values of our society.

In recent years, several top entertainment executives have spoken out, laudably, on the need for minimum standards and, more recently, on the desirability of more family-friendly programming. But to effect real change, these individual expressions must be translated into a new, collective affirmation of social responsibility on the part of the media industry as a whole.

As parents all of us, too, have a major responsibility to supervise our children’s access to the entertainment media--be it television, films, music, videos, video games, or the Internet. Allowing children unsupervised access to today’s media is the moral equivalent of letting them go play on the freeway. Parents should limit TV viewing hours. They should know what programs their child is watching, what music he or she is listening to, what films he or she is attending, what videos he or she is renting, what video games he or she is playing, and what web sites he or she is surfing on the Internet.

While most parents are concerned about the media's influence, some, unfortunately, neglect these critical obligations. But today even the most conscientious parent cries out for help from an industry that too often abdicates its responsibility for its powerful impact on the young.

Therefore we, the undersigned, call upon executives of the media industry--as well as CEOs of companies that advertise in the electronic media--to join with us, and with America’s parents, in a new social compact aimed at renewing our culture and making our media environment more healthy for our society and safer for our children.

We call upon industry leaders in all media--television, film, music, video, and electronic games--to band together to develop a new voluntary code of conduct, broadly modeled on the NAB code.

The code we envision would (1) affirm in clear terms the industry’s vital responsibilities for the health of our culture; (2) establish certain minimum standards for violent, sexual, and degrading material for each medium, below which producers can be expected not to go; (3) commit the industry to an overall reduction in the level of entertainment violence; (4) ban the practice of targeting of adult-oriented entertainment to youth markets; (5) provide for more accurate information to parents on media content while committing to the creation of "windows" or "safe havens" for family programming (including a revival of TV's "Family Hour"); and, finally, (6) pledge the industry to significantly greater creative efforts to develop good family-oriented entertainment.

We strongly urge parents to express their support for a new voluntary code of conduct directly to media executives and advertisers, whether through calls, letters, faxes, or e-mails, or by becoming signers of this Appeal by filling out and submitting the form below. And we call upon all parents to fulfill their part of the compact by responsibly supervising their children’s media exposure.

We are not advocating censorship or wholesale strictures on artistic creativity. We are not demanding that all entertainment be geared to young children. Finally, we are not asking government to police the media. Rather, we are asking the entertainment industry to assume a decent minimum of responsibility for its own actions and to take some modest steps of self-restraint. And we are asking parents to help in this task, not just by taking responsibility for shielding their own children, but also by making their concerns known to media executives and advertisers.

Hollywood has an enormous influence on America, particularly the young. By making a concerted effort to turn its energies to promoting decent, shared values and strengthening American families, the entertainment industry has it within its power to help make an America worthy of the Third Millennium. We, leaders from government, the religious community, the nonprofit world, and the private sector, challenge the entertainment industry to this great task. We appeal to those who are reaping great profits to give something back. We believe that by choosing to do good, the entertainment industry can also make good--and both the industry and our society will be richer and better as a result.

Signers as of July 21, 1999
Steve Allen
William J. Bennett
Co-Director
Empower America

David Blankenhorn
President
Institute for American Values

Sissela Bok
Distinguished Fellow
Harvard Center for Population Studies

Frederick Borsch
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles

L. Brent Bozell III
Chairman
Parents Television Council

Senator Sam Brownback

Bill Bright
Founder and President
Campus Crusade for Christ

Jimmy Carter

Lynne V. Cheney
Senior Fellow
American Enterprise Institute

Senator Kent Conrad

Stephen R. Covey
Co-Founder and Vice Chairman
Franklin Covey Company

Mario Cuomo
Former Governor of New York

John J. DiIulio, Jr.
Fox Leadership Professor of Politics
University of Pennsylvania

Don Eberly
Director
The Civil Society Project

Amitai Etzioni
University Professor
George Washington University

Vic Faraci
Senior Vice President
Warner Brothers Records

Gerald R. Ford

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Eleanore Raoul Professor of Humanities
Emory University

William Galston
Professor and Director
Institute for Philosophy
and Public Policy
School of Public Affairs
University of Maryland

Mandell Ganchrow, M.D.
President
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations


Norton Garfinkle
Chairman
Oxford Management Corporation
Robert George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University

George Gerbner
Bell Atlantic Professor of Telecommunications
Temple University
Dean Emeritus
Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania

Patrick Glynn
Director
Media Social Responsibility Project
Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies
George Washington University

Os Guinness
Senior Fellow
The Trinity Forum

Robert Hanley
Actor, Writer, Director
Founder and President
Entertainment Fellowship

Stephen A. Hayner
President
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

Gertrude Himmelfarb
Professor Emeritus of History
Graduate School
City University of New York

Mark Honig
Executive Director
Parents Television Council

James Davison Hunter
Kenan Professor of Sociology and
Religious Studies
University of Virginia

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Dean and Professor of Communications
Annenberg School for Communications
University of Pennsylvania

Naomi Judd

Jack Kemp
Co-Director
Empower America

Carol Lawrence

Senator Joe Lieberman

Senator John McCain

E. Michael McCann
District Attorney
Milwaukee County, WI

Thomas Monaghan
President
Ave Maria Foundation


Richard John Neuhaus
President
Institute on Religion and Public Life
Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., M.D.
Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School

Sam Nunn
Former U.S. Senator

Neil Postman
Professor
New York University

Alvin Poussaint
Director, Media Center
Judge Baker Children's Center

General Colin Powell (ret.)

Eugene Rivers
Co-Chair
National Ten Point Leadership Foundation

General Norman Schwarzkopf (ret.)

Glenn Tinder
Professor of Political Science Emeritus
University of Massachusetts at Boston

C. DeLores Tucker
Chair and Convening Founder
The National Political Congress of Black Women

Joan Van Ark
Actress, Producer, Director

Jim Wallis
Editor
Sojourners
Convener, Call to Renewal

David Walsh
President
National Institute on Media and the Family

Jerry M. Wiener, M.D.
Emeritus Professor Psychiatry and Pediatrics
George Washington University

Elie Wiesel
Andrew Mellon Professor in the Humanities
Boston University

James Q. Wilson
Emeritus Professor
University of California at Los Angeles

Alan Wolfe
University Professor
Boston University

Daniel Yankelovich
President
The Public Agenda



[This message has been edited by Frank Haertlein (edited July 21, 1999).]

 

[Coinneach]

While I agree that *some* kids are negatively affected by violence in the media, what about the millions who aren't?

What about the kids who listen to Marilyn Manson and *don't* kill their classmates?

What about those of us who listened to Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister, yet grew up to be (relatively) normal, responsible adults?

I'm sorry, but calling for more laws restricting the right of expression (which seems to be the thrust of the letter above) is absolutely *not* the answer. This is the tactic used by the antis: basing legislation that affects everyone on the actions of a few.

Like I said, I grew up listening to some pretty heinous music. My band's CD used samples from some of the most violent movies ever produced. I was one of the first gamers to play Doom, and I've played 3D shooters ever since. I have no religion, no family, no "traditional values."

Does this mean I'm evil? Does it mean that I can't be trusted? Does it mean I'm planning on burning down the nearest church? Puh-leeeze.

"Shaping America," regardless of intent or method, is wrong. You can't force everyone into the same mold, whether you attempt it in the name of your god or cash. That's what made us great: individuality, and the understanding that everyone is different.

Therefore, I fight attempts to censor the media in the name of religion just as strongly as I fight attempts to limit RKBA.

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Ignorance is takin' over,
We gotta take the power back.
--Rage Against The Machine

 

[Ipecac]

I'll take a big pass on joining the Loyal Order of Book Burners myself. You don't like a show, don't watch it, and don't let your kids watch it. Ditto for music (my dad thought ABBA was hard rock). The vast, vast majority of people never commit a violent crime, so why blame them for the actions of a few? I happen to enjoy watching "violent" movies, playing "violent" video games, and listening to "sexual" music (I'll put AC/DC up against any band).

Of course Hollywood tries to shape society. Frank, you want to shape society, just in a different mold.

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." Mencken. Thanks to Al Gore, all of us now own our very own press, the Internet. The old media are scared, and trying to create audiences with sensational stories. Why listen? We all know their "news" is propaganda, most of the country knows now. They're dying, and they know it.

To paraphrase Lizard, "I don't care if you're screwing a goat while standing on the flag and smoking crack, just keep the noise down." And if some little psycho decides to shoot up your corner of the world, do us all a favor and dump him like yesterday's fish wrapped in today's newspaper.

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"The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of any of their number is self-protection."
John Stuart Mill