The Industry Wide Leadership Conference On Television And Violence:
Opening and Closing Remarks

Marian Rees, a member of the CAUCUS's Steering Committee and award-winning producer of television movies, including many for Hallmark Hall of Fame, is also a co-chair of The National Council for Families and Television. August 2nd, she made the opening and closing remarks for the celebrated industry-wide Leadership Conference on Television and Violence. The text of her remarks, which provoked and focused the dialogue that followed, are presented in the hopes that her words will continue to stimulate serious reflections on the LARGER issue of violence in our society.

On behalf of the National Council for Families and Television Trustees, my Co-Chairs Marcy Carsey and Bill Allen and our Founder, Chair Emeritus Teresa Heinz. I am pleased to welcome all of you, the television industry leaders, network chairmen and presidents, cable CEO's and COO'S, studio heads and virtually everyone with a role in creating television programming.

The anticipation in this room is palpable. This conference is historic. This conference marks the first time in the nearly half-century history of television in the United States that the television industry's leadership - 650 strong - has gathered in one room at one time to immerse themselves in one issue.

Today, we have agreed to sit down together and focus on the impact of violence as it is depicted in entertainment TV programming, especially as it affects children.

In recent weeks, as the national debate on the portrayal of violence on television has intensified, the conference has taken on a significance unanticipated by the National Council for Families and Television and those who helped to plan it. Founded in 1977 as a non-profit, non-partisan organization, the NCFT's mission has long been primarily educational. We have never lobbied. Every summer for fifteen years the Council has convened a meeting of top executives, writers and producers to hear from experts on given topics and explore how television impacts on society. We've examined subjects like television and education, television and environment, and last summer, television and the Nation's health. It was then we heard former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D. and then - Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan, raise violence as a health issue. Specifically, the Center for Disease Control labeling youth homicide an epidemic threatening the public health.

So it seemed appropriate for us to convene this conference to provide a forum for a comprehensive exploration of violence portrayed in television. It is planned to accomplish an exchange of views. It is not to carve an agreement.

As Chair of the NCFT, I have been concerned that the expectations of the August 2nd Conference will be perceived unrealistically as the end-all forum from which will emerge a 5-point or 10-point plan. I cannot emphasize enough to keep expectations real.

From the beginning, our statement of purpose was set forth as follows:

". . . in a first of its kind meeting to review and discuss the portrayal of violence on television. Working with America's TV industries--including broadcasters, cable operators, and program creators--NCFT has developed a conference intended to heighten awareness of the impact that TV violence may have on viewers and on society at large. The goal is to encourage the industries to tell their stories with greater sensitivity to depictions of violence. The breadth of perspectives will range from academic research and media literacy training, to the special issues related to children, to the role of government in a free society."

This conference is not a laboratory. We will not be able to measure our success with precision. But look around. We have already achieved a great deal. The community is thinking about violence in its work as it never has before.

Since we began planning this meeting, the industry--network and cable--have announced Parental Advisory Plans. Post-Conference Industry consciousness-raising seminars have been announced as an important second step. This Conference can be seen as the inaugural part of NCFT's series of Leadership meetings, the next scheduled for November: "Violence and The Media."

With all this, and now that the rash of Congressional hearings are winding down, I have been asked, isn't this Conference irrelevant?

I think that it is now more relevant than ever. It is more crucially important than ever that the entire creative community understand what the controversy is really all about, to focus on a core question: is television to blame--even partly to blame--for this epidemic of violence in our society? I think it would be a mistake--a tragic mistake--to view that question in isolation. We must approach violence societally, keeping in mind what Alexander Solzhenitsyn said when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize: "Violence does not and cannot exist by itself."

However, I think it would be equally tragic if we dismiss the core question without listening openly to the debate. Today we will hear from researchers and others who answer that central question with an unequivocal "yes." Some point to the studies that show viewing violence occasionally incites viewers to commit violent acts, but more often desensitizes viewers to violence. Further, those studies say the strongest, most common effect of violence is to create a sense of "insecurity, vulnerability, and mistrust . . . alienation and gloom" in those who view violence.

What creates insecurity, vulnerability, and mistrust . . . alienation and gloom in society itself that often results in violence? And is television a part of that or even a small part of that? We'll hear from others who say they are not sure.

We'll discuss and debate a wide range of thought, and possible solutions to that core question.

Leading us through the day will be Jeff Greenfield with the morning panels, and Arthur Miller conducting the Socratic Dialogue following our luncheon speaker Illinois Senator Paul Simon, who has come not to judge us, but rather to experience first-hand that the television industry on the whole is a thoughtful, intelligent, dedicated and concerned community of professionals.

Closing Remarks

To Senator Simon, our moderators Jeff Greenfield and Arthur Miller, panelists and participants, thank you for a memorable day. An extraordinary day - one which has been observed by the print media, as well as by C-SPAN and CNN who also have covered this day.

A day that will be followed by another question:

"WHAT DID THE CONFERENCE ACCOMPLISH?"

That can best be measured not in a day but in the months that follow. Will the television programming in this new Fall season continue the reported perceived reduction of violence on the screen? It is to be expected such measuring will be an on-going process, to determine if we are on track with what has been planned and with what we've been asked to do. An ongoing process of exploration of an overriding issue of violence in America and how television responds.

Today, we have been urged to deglamourize violence on TV. We've been encouraged to look at ourselves. We have been encouraged to self-examination, to self-regulation.

We, the television industry, create images. We know the creation of these images hold enormous power, can influence society's consciousness.

I know this to be a responsible and responsive community. Without claiming or denying blame this industry has taken a lead in carrying the messages of child abuse, civil rights, AIDS, alcohol, smoking, and other issues effectively, measurably, through its storytelling.

The depictions of violence in our storytelling is no less an urgent issue. That challenges us to respond to the question:

"WHAT DID THE CONFERENCE ACCOMPLISH?"

To emerge from today with some kind of formal "action plan" was not intended. Rather, let us leave this room today resolved not to bog down in minutia or parochial self-interest but to seek out of this conference a new commitment to share in the challenge, where common goals can be focused on and realized collectively through the individual actions of us all. When enough of us are aware of something, all of us become aware of it. We can form that critical mass around the cultural debate. Thus the Industry leaders here today will join with all who soberly and seriously are engaging themselves in the issue, thus linking ourselves to a national framework of concern and examination of the systemic causes of violence.

"WHAT DID THE CONFERENCE ACCOMPLISH?"

Each individual who leaves this room today with a greater sensitivity to the depiction of violence on television will look at her or his work a little differently.

See television where violence on television has consequences. Yet, television that does not stifle creative, responsible storytellers. Television that challenges rather than panders and thereby contribute to an understanding of, and a reduction of violence in America, balanced with images that give hope to the community--one that has become global.

In his address before a Joint Session of Congress on February 21, 1990, (Czechoslovakian) President Vaclav Havel said:

"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility. The only genuine backbone of all our actions--if they are to be moral--is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than our family, our country, our firm, our success."

We here understand that responsibility.

On behalf of the National Council For Families and Television and the members of the Planning Committee, thank you for being here today!