Little Brother is Watching You

What are the two most violent things screened on television?
Forget the late night episodes of CSI (insert any US city here). If you want to see something truly shocking, disturbing, violent or riddled with bad language then television news or live sport is as good a place as any to start.
Take the very unfortunate incident last week of Ukranian swimming coach Mikhaylo Zubkov in a violent poolside brawl in Melbourne at the World Swimming Championships.
Live on TV at 6.30 at night families tuning in to see the world's greatest swimmers in action - what you would have to consider a "safe"family viewing - were treated to extremely disturbing vision.
One of the most disturbing parts of the incident for television viewers was that it was live which means that no-one could know what would happen next yet it was being screened without protection into homes at a time which is in the G classification zone.
Of course the great out for broadcasters is that news and live sport are exempted from classification under the code provided "the licensee exercises care in selecting material for broadcast having regard to:
2.4.1.1 the likely audience of the program; and
2.4.1.2 any identifiable public interest reason for presenting the program
material."
You'd have to wonder exactly what care is taken in broadcasting unedited live television footage of a volatile situation. In reality exactly none. Which is the problem. The incident, in itself, did not end up being too bad but no-one could have known the result.
But the frightening thing is the trend. With the increasing number of surveillance cameras and the fact that we all now carry devices capable of capturing video and still images the possibility of disturbing footage being captured and broadcast is higher than ever before. Indeed the television stations are falling over each other to get their hands on our footage and the most "attractive" footage to broadcasters seems to be the most violent footage.
All of us with children should be very alarmed. The more of this kind of footage children see, the more likely it is that they will succumb to wicked world syndrome. If you see this happening all the time on television it's not a big leap to start believing that's all that's happening all the time outside the square box.
Our children deserve better. Horrible things do happen in the world every day and for their own protection our children do need know that horrible people capable of doing horrible things are out there.
They just don't need to be deluged with it and the danger is that that's what is going to happen unless we give real thought to what happens to all that footage being collected by all those cameras all over the place.

Children deserve a proper review of children's TV standards

So Communications Minister Helen Coonan says the Government will review children's television standards later this year.
Why do I feel immediately underwhelmed?
Perhaps because it ignores the fact that almost all television is television accessed by children and is therefore at one level children's television. And then there's the fact that reviews in the past have tended to water down and not strengthen the protection built into dedicated children's television.
To deal with the first issue first. Our system assumes that television screened during the times that children are watching will be appropriate for children. Basically before school, after school and before 8.30pm and before 8.30pm on the weekend there should be nothing on the television deemed unsuitable for children.
The programs in this zone are all classified G or PG. But as complaints to the Australian Broadcasting authority reveal this isn't always the case. Promotions for shows later at night seem to be a source of constant concern with the Australian Media and Communications Authority revealing numerous instances where both the ABC and the Commercial stations breached their responsibilities in this regard. In every case the penalty was a slap on the wrist. There is simply no incentive for stations to do the right thing.
And then there's the official dedicated children's televisions zones. The last review in 2004 saw the number of hours of protected G rated television reduced by one hour on school days and nine and a half hours on weekends.
And repeated calls to restrict the amount of inappropriate advertising children are exposed to are consistently ignored.
When it comes to preschool television standards, the situation is even worse. Since 1984, broadcasters have been required to screen a minimum of 30 minutes of preschool programs each week day . The code says this is because commercial television licensees have an obligation to serve children. Yet we all know that while 30 minutes a day might be a requirement that certainly doesn't mean a dependable time of day, every day of the week. A good cricket match or golf tournament seem ample reason to throw that "obligation to serve children" out the window. You only need to look at the instance where the death of Kerry Packer in the last week of 2005 prevented the Nine Network from meeting its preschool television commitments. In short, the networks care only as much as they are made to care - which really isn't very much.
So Senator Coonan, by all means review children's television but do so in the interest of children and not just the networks or advertisers. Our children deserve it