Culture Notes

Make everyone show Sesame Street?

Should the federal government require all television broadcasters to provide at least three hours per week of children's educational programming? As part of its it-takes-a-village "pro-child" policy, the Clinton administration wants the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that all local broadcasters include educational TV. Merely sticking a geography fact into a Saturday morning cartoon is not enough-the FCC is insisting on full-blown educational programming. The National Association of Broadcasters, which understandably resists federal intrusions into programming decisions and having to air programs that children may not want to watch, are trying to strike a compromise. Most parents, of course, feel their children are learning too much from television already. The academic potential of television is grossly over-rated, according to media specialists such as Neil Postman, and the present state of educational theory would probably mean programs designed by education experts would be mostly preachy indoctrination with little intellectual substance. Here's a better idea: Let the National Association of Broadcasters voluntarily pledge to develop quality television for kids, featuring intelligent stories, artistic production, and moral themes. The problem is not that children's TV is not educational, but that it's bad. Providing entertaining, non-condescending, and thematically positive shows for children would silence the critics, keep the government off their backs, and even provide indirect educational benefits, as children begin consuming something more substantive than Saturday-morning mind candy.