From:      <bbassett@Novell.com>
To:        A4.A4(ssegal)
Date:      11/21/95 1:17pm
Subject:   Chairman's Column Comments

Bret Bassett (bbassett@Novell.com) writes:

Hi Chairman Hundt,

I was able to hear your message at Telecon XV, and was impressed
to get involved.

I appreciate your desire to get citizen input before you set
policy which will manage the upcoming media blitz made possible
by new telecommunications technologies.  My wife and I have some
pretty strong feelings about the social damage being done by
unresponsible media and advertising entities who proliferate
violence and immorality across our airwaves.

I understand the impossibility of Government stepping in and
cutting off this type of programming.  Our first ammendment
rights are too precious to leave up to the Government to control. 
But I believe that the public can pressure  advertisers and
television moguls to clean up their programming.  The problem is
that there are no tools, forums, or resources to help me unite my
puny little voice, with that of the other millions of outraged
citizens. I believe that the Government can and should help
create means and resources to help unite the public against those
who seek to proliferate this damaging content.

Here are 3 things that would help me in my personal fight against
irresponsible  programming...

1. Make advertisers responsible for the programming they sponser. 
At the beginning and ending of each questionable program (maybe
all programs) a list of the sponsers of the show, and how you can
reach them should be listed.  This will  allow the viewing public
to contact the people who really are the  'owners' of that hour
of program time.  I can't do that now without doing so much
research that it becomes impossible to do.  Maybe a site on the
WWW which shows not only television programming, but who the
sponsers are for each program, and a hot link to each sponsers
response page would do the job.  That seems to be an appropriate
task for Government...to set up and promote such a service.

2. Make local television stations more responsible for the
programming they air.  Right now if my local CBS affiliate airs
an objectionable program, and I call to  complain, their only
response is - 'We have no control over the programming. That
comes from the CBS corporate programming.  We can't change it.' 
So I go to write a complaint to the corporate Giant, and I find
that I don't have a name or number to write to. I quickly lose
faith that my little letter will do any good  anyway, so I stop.
If local affiliates were free to pick and choose from a menu  of
programming they could air then our community could demand more
decent  programming from our local affiliates. As it is, we have
no control of national  programming, and are doomed to have our
kids (and our neighbors kids) watching  whatever garbage media
moguls (and advertisers) believe will get the biggest  audience.

3.  Require movie trailers and TV show promos which are aired on
television to be shown in appropriate time slots...Right now my
children (and myself) can be watching a perfectly wonderful
program, when suddenly during advertising time, lewd, sensual,
violent, macabre, and powerful movie trailers blast onto the
screen. It takes another fifteen minutess of getting back into
the program to get the graphic nature of the ads out of my mind,
and I don't know if the images ever fully leave my children's
minds.  I can control what our kids watch on television.  But I
can't control the advertisements which are shown.  There needs to
be some control placed there.

Why should we bother?  

Because I believe that much of the television and other media
programming that air are tearing apart the trust structure of our
nation.  By constantly depicting people solving problems with
guns, normal people who go mad, normal mothers and  families that
are broken apart with greed, lust, and ambition, I learn in the
media that I can barely trust myself, let alone trust you.  I
learn that you shouldn't trust your spouse, your children, your
elected leaders, your police force,  your legal system, your
health system, etc.  I learn that the people I don't know
intimately are instantly suspect.  I learn that I have to keep my
own  interests uppermost in my mind and to heck with everyone
else's interest.

This is a terrible way to learn to live, for it tears apart our
nation.  It is worth fixing the media, so that we can begin to
learn to trust each other again.
  

If there are any resources that I am not aware of to help me get
involved
I would appreciate knowing about it.  Thanks for giving me a
forum to express  my feelings.  It gives me hope that there are
people in powerful places,  who are working on these problems. 
It helps put trust back into Washington.

Bret
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