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God Bless the PTA and PTC! Pat Boone God bless the PTA. God bless the caring, involved parents who take the time to meet with the caring, involved and able teachers to strategize on the best ways to educate this nation's young. In this mechanized, compartmentalized and computerized age, too often our kids seem to be on a conveyor belt, gliding namelessly through tunnels we call "grades," expected to turn in papers and answer questions and hit their marks, fill their seats on time, and not make waves lest they be left back or bumped off the belt completely. Teachers are unionized and tenurized, tempted to punch a clock and paint by the numbers, collect a check and look toward early, comfortable retirement ... very much like workers in a steel mill. It's a job, little more. But again, THANK GOD FOR THE PTA! There are countless teachers, on every level, who want to give and experience more than that George Orwellian "1984" life! They became teachers because they wanted to mold young lives, to plant valuable and useful and uplifting information in eager young minds, and to make the world a better place by making young people better. They're not happy with just the "status quo," the conveyor belt process; they take the time and interest to know each student, to assess his or her abilities and needs, and try to open children's horizons to a better future. They're what teachers ought to be. But they know they can't do it alone. They need the help and cooperation of the parents in shaping or even correcting the mindsets of the kids, in making education fun and compelling, in motivating and involving and challenging and rewarding. And so they meet together, the parents and the teachers, and they work out ways to do these things, all for the benefit of the kids.
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Increasingly, though, they find that even their frequent and earnest efforts are being undermined and effectively thwarted BY TELEVISION. See, almost no matter how hard the parents try to shield and govern TV watching by their kids, they manage to spend more time in front of the flickering tube than in any single class, and often more than they spend on reading assigned books or doing homework! And don't kid yourself; shows like "The O.C. (Orange County)," "Dawson's Creek" and "South Park" wield greater influence in shaping morals and attitudes and life perspective than most teachers and parents combined! So, THANK GOD FOR THE PTC! This year marks the 11th anniversary of the Parents Television Council, the organization that has led the national effort to restore responsibility and common decency to the entertainment industry, particularly television. This valiant group of dedicated people has determined to help concerned parents and teachers accomplish their goal of nurturing fine, moral, honest kids. Now more than 1 million members strong, the PTC has gained worldwide recognition as America's largest and most influential watchdog organization. "Watchdog"? You flinch? Has that word become a pejorative? A negative? As if we don't need "watching"? C'mon, get real. Every day the Parents Television Council is on the frontlines combating the violent and vulgar content rampant on our TV screens, being served up constantly to millions of impressionable children and teens. Why? Because more than 50 years of research and over 1,000 studies have proven that children are strongly influenced by what they see on TV, in the movies and now in video games.
Yet in spite of all this well-known and documented evidence, the producers and creators and programmers continue to aggressively market sexually explicit, violent and vulgar "entertainment" to children, all the while insisting they aren't responsible for the destructive and immoral behaviors those products inspire in young people. Really, it's like rich drug traffickers protesting: "Hey, I just make the stuff available. They want it, they use and abuse it; I'm not responsible for what they do afterwards." Parents, teachers, if you're not yet fully aware of your friends at the PTC, know that their well-deserved reputation is rooted in its meticulously gathered and painstakingly documented research. With almost 15,800 VHS tapes containing nearly 107,000 hours of programming, the PTC's video library and research capabilities are unrivaled, making the PTC the nation's foremost authority on television content! THESE PEOPLE ARE ON THE CASE, AND ON YOUR SIDE! In fact, government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, congressional agencies, advertisers, press outlets and other nonprofits have come to rely upon the PTC's videotape archive as a valuable resource in reviewing complaints about inappropriate marketing practices and program content. And the complaints are getting louder and more profuse daily! The PTC uses its high-tech data gathering and the detailed and complex data stored in its ETS (Electronic Tracking System) to generate special reports and studies; publish weekly online e-alerts and stories for the "Insider" newsletter; generate and file FCC complaints; inform companies about their sponsorship patterns; and inform Web users about program content. They are not censors. People are still, and always, free to produce and view whatever they choose; but the sludge is flying so thick and fast now, and parents are so harassed and busy, that most are woefully ignorant of the avalanche of filth being poured into their dens and living rooms and into the minds of their young. And so, incredibly, are many of the major sponsors! It won't surprise you that none of these programs gets on the air unless somebody pays handsomely to sponsor them. However, you might be surprised to learn that the middlemen, the advertising agencies, make a lot of the multimillion-dollar investments in R-rated TV shows, because they want to deliver "eyes," a big viewing audience, to the sponsor. The PTC has discovered that the CEOs of the biggest companies may not even be aware that they are associating their family products with the most family-alien programs on the air being told by their ad men that they're getting "big numbers"! So the PTC informs them. And happily, many of the big execs quickly order the ad men to get their products' names OFF those scurvy programs! As a member of the board of the PTC, I personally contacted three major sponsors who were paying for perhaps the filthiest show on TV, "Nip/Tuck" on FX network. The producer/writer of this show was quoted in TV Guide promising to depict actual male anal sex in future episodes, on broadcast TV and in prime time! He's already done virtually everything but that, and this is the mindset of an increasing number of producers. And you may bristle at the idea of a "watchdog"? The three sponsors then were Toyota, IKEA and the U.S. Army! All looking for a big, largely male audience to sell to. Once informed and SHOWN what they were funding, the Army and IKEA dropped the show like a hot potato; but a junior rep from Toyota wrote me that they didn't see the shows before they aired and didn't exert influence on show content. I wrote back: "Very strange. Do you expect a customer to buy a Toyota without looking inside, or maybe taking a test drive? And have you considered the ironic truth that the more successful this scabrous show becomes, through your sponsorship, the more people will associate Toyota with everything it depicts? Is this really what you want?" No response this time. But the PTC doesn't give up. They mobilized members to contact sponsors of "N/T" to ask them whether they endorse the pornographic content and amoral messages so prevalent on that show. Since then, 57 sponsors (finally including Toyota, U.S. and General Motors and IKEA) have withdrawn their ad dollars from it. And yet FX still markets it, sells it to somebody else, and streams it into our living rooms! The PTC garnered similar success against "The Shield," a well-produced and -acted show (the worst ones usually are), with 30 companies pulling their ad support from it. Among the most prominent are Coca-Cola, American Honda and Kia Motor Corporation. Friends, we're in a titanic struggle to protect the minds and souls of our future generations, our very children and teens. The parents can't do it alone, and neither can the teachers. The influences are too pervasive and insistent and seductive. You might want to join me and a million or more of your fellow citizens in joining the struggle, by going to ParentsTV.org; and meanwhile, at least join me in praying: GOD BLESS THE PTA AND THE PTC!
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