Get set for another political morality play this week as the presidential candidates campaign on a government report that blasts the entertainment industry for selling violent fare to children.
Violent movies, video games and music are routinely marketed to young people in violation of the entertainment industry’s own rating guidelines, the Federal Trade Commission says in a report due out today.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman changed his schedule to fly to Chicago so he and Al Gore can discuss the FTC report today in TV interviews, campaign officials said.
Lieberman has been a leading critic in Congress of the entertainment industry over the issue. He’s expected to attend a Senate hearing on the subject Wednesday.
GOP nominee George W. Bush will have his say on the study, too.
The Texas governor “believes the entertainment industry has to take personal responsibility for the products it provides to our children,” said campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer.
The 104-page FTC study – commissioned by President Clinton with support from Lieberman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) – found that the entertainment industry’s marketing “frustrates parents’ attempts to make informed decisions about their children’s exposure to violent content.”
FTC probers studied marketing campaigns for 44 R-rated movies – which children under 17 aren’t supposed to see without their parents.
But in the case of 33 of the movies, studios actually test-marketed the films or the films’ advertising on children under 17, The Washington Post reports.
Most of that research was with children 15 or older – but eight movies involved research with 12-year-olds, and at least one movie was tested with 10-year-olds.
Similar findings were reported with M-rated video games, which, like R-rated movies, are supposedly aimed at adults.
The FTC says the entertainment industry must do a better job policing its marketing practices, and enforcing rating codes of its movies, music and video games.
But the agency shied away from recommending government regulation – which the entertainment industry has long opposed on First Amendment grounds.