Secondly, I think it is the responsibility for the parents to give children guidance when watching news. The purpose of news is to reveal the objective facts in this world, and it is hard to avoid showing negative materials and graphics in this case. As a result, parents should be ready for guiding their children on what the news is about and what attitude should they have when reading different type of news, different types of facts. In this way, I think the government should better modify the television code with detail guidance and information for the parents. Even though there is such a code regulation nowadays, they are not strictly applied when the television company is striving for a better rating. If the government can provide a better and strict leveling system of television code regulation to Television Company, it is easier for parents to avoid letting children to see the ‘too negative image’ more conveniently.
Thirdly, through the statistic done by the ‘age editorial’ in 2001, we can see that most children are actually not interested in watching news. Thus, if the news is censored for children, then the majority audience group (the adult) is ignored. And to be honest, it is not really pragmatic to censor television news; instead, the government should focus on other programs which children like most, for example: films and computer games. Nowadays, many films and computer games are made to be ‘too dramatic’; this projects a wrong society concept to children. Like the violent film, children believe that violence is the only way to solve problem when the character inside the film is created to be too heroic. So, I think the government should not focus on censoring news when news are never made to be ‘over dramatic’.
To conclude, I think children growth is negatively influenced if they are banned to watch the reality of the world. I do not think they will be affected a lot if they are letting to watch the distressing graphics, as they are actually all around the media world. Thus, censoring news in children viewing hours is very unnecessary. The most essential way to avoid children from getting negative knowledge from the news is to guide them watch the news with a correct attitude. And this is all done by the parents, with the help of the television code regulated by the government.
1. What is the issue?
The issue is about the censor of the television news during the children’s viewing hours.
2. What are the different viewpoints.
Some people, like the psychologists, agree to ban the distressing and violent images to be shown in news during the children’s viewing hours. And some people, like the editor of the television company, disagree with the proposal. They think it is not necessary and this is unworkable.
3. What are the arguments for the issue? What evidence can you give?
There are three arguments for the issue: the bad influence for the children when viewing too much distressing graphics, the inadequate advance warning for the parents, and the self regulation problem of the television stations.
Psychologist, Dr Carr-Gregg said that 'Young children should not be shielded from what is happening in the world, but they should be shielded from content that is too graphic.' And he believed that young children are afraid of facing the reality world and not willing to go out after viewing explicit coverage of violent events on television news.
And even if the government has a television code warning system, the parents still can not get enough information of what is going to be shown. And thus, they are not prepared to give enough guidance for their children.
Moreover, the television station may have their ways to judge what is going to shown. But sometimes, their self regulation is not correct enough, so to attract more audiences as well as increase its rating.
4. What are the arguments against the issue? What evidence can you give?
There are three arguments against the issue: the responsibility of the parents to give guidance for their kids, the help of the television code, as well as the concern on other media.
There is an argument saying that regulating children's television viewing is a parental responsibility. And some parents are so willing to let their children to watch news without having any special treatment for children. They tend to explain what and why things happen instead of banning their children to get a touch of the reality. Moreover, there is a 16 years old girl saying that she would like to watch the news (no matter it is with or without any distressing graphic). She said that the violence shows the reality and it teaches her things that the school can not provide.
Also, it is believed that the news editors have good judgments on what is okay and not okay to be shown. And they think that both children and adults need to be informed of the current affairs and world events. And once there is television code, like what other countries do, it can provide the parents enough information for their guidance of children.
And the most important of all, people against this issue because they think that television news should not be the key concern for the public on the proper growth of kids. Computer games and films may contain more exaggerated graphics than news. And these two media should take into concern rather than television news.
