First, President Bush signed into law a bill that bans lead and phthalates in toys for kids under 12. (Note to Gov. Pawlenty: Reverse thinking.)

And remember the National Conference on Media Reform? And how they offered to give a $500 contribution to any organization from one lucky attendee who filled out the evaluation? You don’t? Neither did I, until they contacted me and asked for PEM’s address. Thanks to lucky board member Jeff Zuckerman.

Finally, after a gruelling six months of waiting, the IRS has granted Parents for Ethical Marketing nonprofit status. So for today, I get to live my dream of running a small nonprofit.

I should go on vacation more often.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, fresh from a terrific speech at the National Conference on Media Reform, criticized the FCC’s inaction to safeguard children and asked for industry cooperation when he addressed the Media Institute on June 11.

While many of the steps Adelstein proposed concerned television programming, the V-chip and other blocking technologies, and ratings, he also addressed advertising directed at children. Two of his proposals:

Launch Embedded Advertising in Children’s Programming Proceeding. The Commission should release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on sponsorship identification and embedded advertising. Specifically, it needs to solicit public comment on whether our existing rules governing commercials in children’s programming adequately promote the policy goals underlying the Children’s Television Act and the sponsorship ID rules. This is especially important with respect to embedded advertising in children’s programming.

Finalize Interactive Advertisement Targeting Children Proceeding. The Commission should quickly move on the 2004 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on how to implement sensible restrictions on interactive ads targeting children. The Commission tentatively concluded that interactive ads targeting children should be banned. With the growing convergence of television and the Internet, we need to promulgate rules before interactive advertising becomes an established business model.

Emphasis mine. Adelstein also suggested that the FCC host a Summit on Protecting America’s Children to “encourage all stakeholders to bring their best ideas forward and develop best practices.”

In his speech, Adelstein acknowleged what Parents for Ethical Marketing and other organizations have been trying to get in front of the media-makers: that parents are tired of the fight.

In case you don’t know it already, many parents are feeling inundated by an array of media that are flooding their children’s minds with inappropriate material. Too many parents feel like they are losing control, and they’re frustrated by a seemingly relentless march of coarse material that is too violent, too sexual, too commercial or too unhealthy for their children. Messages or images their children are not ready to hear pop up in too many places for parents to easily control, from insensitively timed commercials during otherwise family-friendly programming to Internet ads and spam coming over the computer.

There is growing concern about unhealthful messages and images as well. . . . Many studies show the damaging effects of advertising on children’s food choices. Some of your companies have taken important steps, but there is far more to be done.

For parents, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole, with an increasing number of moles jumping up faster and faster. Too many parents suffer from a sense of exhaustion or futility. I suspect many of you share these concerns on a personal level, but many of you also work for powerful media companies that are helping this mole population to proliferate. . . .

I believe I speak for millions of parents when I say we’re overwhelmed, fed up and looking for help from the government and the industry alike.  

I would have been skeptical if I hadn’t heard Adelstein speak with such passion and conviction myself. We’ll be contacting his office to see how PEM members can participate in the rulemaking process.

Here’s to a little hopeful optimism!

Since I know some readers here are also fans of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly, and since I’ve been talking up the NCMR like crazy, I thought I should note that O’Reilly’s characterization of the event and the people attending was pretty inaccurate. Others agree. 

Minnesota reporter Paul Schmelzer notes that O’Reilly’s report failed to mention

. . . views from the kind of people I met, from mainstream reporters to church-based peace advocates to activists working to get accurate representations of rural life into corporate media.

 Attendee Larry Hollon reports

. . . I heard humane values and a concern for social justice and human dignity that was solid and deeply moving, and I believe this is where progressive faith and media reform intersect.

A young, fourteen-year-old female spoke of her concern about a misogynist print ad for a Latino radio station that she believed promoted both violence and sexual abuse of women. When she showed the bus card for the ad, it was clear she had a genuine complaint.

Her recounting of the efforts of a group of young women to get the ad pulled was harrowing. The full force of a corporate media headquarters was brought against these teenagers in an effort to discourage them and scare them away. Yet they persisted and eventually the ad was withdrawn.

As she spoke, I don’t think she was aware of the tears in the eyes of many who’ve been in such struggles and know the costs firsthand.

And from Josh Silver, Free Press executive director: 

The conference . . . was about the failure of corporate media to inform and reflect our communities and our democracy. It is about consolidated TV, radio and newspapers turning the news into sound bites, trivializing critical issues like elections and war, and failing to hold power accountable.

It is a free speech movement at its core, calling for a stronger democracy. We want more channels and more opportunities for voices and views of all kinds.

This is the conference that I saw. I heard some terrific stories and concerns — and questions.

If we own the airwaves, and broadcasters are required to serve the public interest, why are parents always being told to just turn off the television if we don’t like it? How do we trust journalists to tell us the truth about, say, a multi-billion dollar toy company’s problems with lead paint if that company is also a huge source of the owner’s revenue through advertising? If we get ninety percent of our news from only six companies, how will we get a diversity of opinions?

My complaint about the conference was that there was not one session dedicated to how these problems are affecting children and how we raise them. Not one. Several speakers mentioned, in passing, the problems with advertising to kids — Robert McChesney called it obscene — yet no panel formally addressed it.

The conference organizers were taping attendees and asking them to describe why they were there in five words. My five would have been I’m Raising Citizens Not Consumers. 

Is it accurate for O’Reilly to call me “unstable” and a threat to America?

(And was O’Reilly referring to me when he says that “these people” don’t want “dissent in America?” I guess he hasn’t been reading Corporate Babysitter.)

The back and forth of the left and right is tiresome. There really are some values that we all hold as important. I believe that media reform is one of them.

Photo courtesy edkohler