First Lady Says News Violence Harms Young

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday called on the news media to use more positive images of people, saying that children cannot protect themselves from increasing sensationalism and violence on the news.

“Children can’t cope with much of what they see” on television, she said.

A steady diet of stories about children being murdered or priests who molest children tends to desensitize young viewers and “prevent them from developing emotionally and psychologically,” she said.

News stories also tend to reinforce stereotypes of minorities as criminals and women as victims, she said. The First Lady spoke by satellite to about 120 journalists, academics and children’s advocates gathered here for a conference on children and the news media, sponsored by Children Now, a California-based advocacy group.

Earlier this week, the group released a study showing that news stories about children are dominated by crime and violence. A separate national survey of children 11 to 17 found that 65% watched television news and half were left feeling “angry, sad and depressed.”

The conference was called to pressure the news media to change, according to Jim Steyer, president of Children Now.

The First Lady noted that violence levels are dropping in entertainment media and that voluntary monitoring of television programs is a “step in the right direction.”

She acknowledged that public awareness of violence has helped heighten support for deterrents, including proposed crime legislation in Congress. But, she said, “there must be a balance when it comes to children.”

Conference panelist Van Gordon Sauter, president of Fox News, acknowledged that children’s helplessness makes them unique. But, he said, “we can’t create programs for a mass audience through the prism of 13-year-olds.” It would be “commercially disastrous” to tailor news to please elements of society so they will not be frightened, he said. He suggested that children watch news programs made for them such as CNN’s “Real News.”

Other panelists, including ABC’s Carole Simpson and Linda Ellerbee, producer of the Nickelodeon cable channel’s “Nick News” for children, disagreed.

Newton Minow, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said:

“I think the media has become the major educational institution in America, more than schools, more than universities. I think the media has to redefine itself as teachers.”