Plugging TV Watch

Nick Gillespie | May 9, 2005

Here's an unabashed plug for TV Watch, a new bipartisan coalition of industry types, nonprofits, and individuals who believe:

Parents should decide what their kids watch,

The government should not decide what you can watch, and,

Special interest groups should not force your favorite shows off the air

If that sounds like your cup of tea, go here for more info.

And go here for a write-up of TV Watch's recent poll that found three-quarters of Americans don't want the gov't dictating programming.

Full disclosure: I'm a charter member of the new group, which includes such folks as Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis, Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist, and Adam Thierer of The Center for Digital Media Freedom.

Comments

Franklin Harris|5.9.05 @ 4:09PM|#

I went to their web site and signed up. I also see that my former bosses at The Media Institute are involved.

|5.9.05 @ 4:16PM|#

Famous centerfold images of Marilyn Monroe and pictures of nude women painted on World War II planes are being screened by PBS?s Antiques Roadshow, and editors obscured the image of a 50-year old nude lithography.

And some idiot even put curtains over the topless statue of lady justice. IS there no shame in their revisionist history agenda?

|5.9.05 @ 4:29PM|#

the same immoral atheist commies that allow filth like Married With Children and the 700 Club to air on TV...

|5.9.05 @ 4:54PM|#

Web geek aside: what crappy CMS did you use that produces URLs that look like line noise?

http://www.televisionwatch.org/site/c.dqLSI7OCKlF/b.505663/k.CBBE/Home.htm

|5.9.05 @ 6:11PM|#

Special interest groups should not force your favorite shows off the air

I think it's their right to try to bring about changes through boycotts and rants to the media, disagree with them as I may. It's only when they (ab)use the FCC to punish or threaten to punish a network that I feel such activism crosses a line. Once again, it's the government that gives those groups teeth.

|5.9.05 @ 7:18PM|#

Question- anyone in DC still taking the proposal by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens seriously? He wanted to apply the same rules for broadcast TV to cable TV. I know John McCain expressed some approval for it, but has anyone else even acknowledged it?

Thanks for the link. I signed up.

|5.10.05 @ 3:51AM|#

I was going to sign the TVWatch petition, but then I read this part:

Every adult should have access to easy-to-use parental controls and information about program content;

Every parent needing help using those controls should receive it;

Sigh. Another group that feels entitled to the fruits of other people's labor. Sorry, TVWatch, I don't believe in positive rights.

|5.10.05 @ 9:56AM|#

what's wrong with in home parental controls?

|5.10.05 @ 2:08PM|#

Nothing is wrong with parental controls. I simply object to the idea that "every adult" is entitled to them.

If people want "easy-to-use" parental controls, information about program content, and technical support, then they should persuade others to provide these things. No one owes them to anyone (in the absence of a contract that says otherwise).