Brownback, FCC to stop TV from making kids fat

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Is Sam Brownback the answer for limited government types in the Republican party? He bills himself as a “full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative,” which implies a leave-us-alone attitude. Doing research at the FCC’s site today, I came across a press release (PDF) announcing the formation of something called The Task Force on “Media and Childhood Obesity: Today and Tomorrow.” Co-sponsor of the “task force” is Brownback.

The Task Force will produce a report that will recommend “voluntary” steps advertisers and broadcaster will be able to take to protect children from getting fat. Again, these suggestions will be completely voluntary, but the FCC just wanted to make sure to remind you on its obesity website that it has adopted children’s TV rules including “the requirement that television broadcasters, cable operators, and satellite providers protect children from excessive and inappropriate commercial messages,” and they can do so again.

Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate is “elated” about the task force, but shows her conservative principles, saying (PDF), “Government cannot and should not be responsible for solving every societal problem; however, this affects not only our nation’s health but our budget as well.” Right.

“Given the saturation of media in our children’s lives, we need to understand how media impacts their health and behavior,” said Brownback. “Because parents have no control of how much media saturates their children’s lives, nor how it impacts their health,” he didn’t say, but he might as well have.

Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →

Jan 29, 2007 | Comments Off | Tags: , , ,

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