The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 6, 1983- Page 5
Edlucational TV bill sparks
a battle in Senate hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) - The gover-
nment has no business playing program
director and ordering television
stations to air more educational shows
for children, the broadcast industry
told Congress yesterday.
"If we want students to learn more,
we should keep them in school for
another hour rather than send them
home to watch TV - to an environment
where the teacher has no supervision,
no guidance, no review," said Dr. John,
Abel, senior vice president for research
at the National Association of Broad-
casters.
"Expecting broadcasters and paren-
ts to assume the role of professional
teacher is unrealistic," he said.
Abel's testimony before a joint
hearing of two House subcommittees
followed the introduction of a bill by
Rep. Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.). The
measure would require every commer-
cial TV station in the country to provide
at least one hour daily of educational or
informational programming designed
for children.
Wirth, chairman of the House com-
munications subcommittee, introduced
the bill after announcing results of a
survey that found the average com-
mercial TV station airs 61 minutes of
educational or informational
programming per week for children.
By contract, each station averages 152
minutes of cartoosn per week.
The 61 minutes of educational
programming represents less than one
percent of the available airtime each
week, Wirth said.
Abel said Wirth's survey results were
inaccurate, noting that 326 of the 850
commercial TV stations polled had
responded and that an upcoming NAB
study would show substantially larger
amounts of children's programming
'If we want students to learn more, we
should keep them in school for another hour
rather than send them home to watch TV.'
- Dr. John Abel
National Association of Broadcasters
are available.
The House survey is also unfair, he
continued, because it fails to take note
of the children's programming
available through public and cable
television.
"I happen to believe that everybody
has a responsibility and you can't aly it
off on public television or cable.... Are
we going to be serious as a nation about
educating and socializing our young? It
seems to me we have an obligation to
ask those who use a very precious
resource - the airwaves - to assist."
Wirth said.
Yesterday's hearing on the role of
television in educating the nation's
young people featured several wit-
nesses who endorsed Wirth's bill and
his suggestion that commercial broad-
casters weren't doing enough for
children.
'This is not an either-or-situation,'
said Dr. Eli Rubenstein, a professor
with the Bush Institute for Child and
Institute of Modern Greek Studies
MODERN GREEK
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Lang. Structure, Reading Comp.
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Family Policy at the University of Nor-
th Carolina. "Television can be ex-
tremely helpful as an adjunct to formal
education."
"And it seems to us that this hours-a-
day requirement is the rock-bottom
amunt of time that should be devoted to
children's programming," added Dr.
Sharon Robinson, director of instruc-
tion and professional development for
the National Education Association.
Meanwhile, Sen. Robert Packwood
(R-Ore.) introduced a bill that would
repeal the equal time and fairness doc-
trine laws "and other resrictions on the
freedom of the electronic media."
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Daily Photo by TOD WOOLF
Cream of the crop
Sigma (hi member Robert Bentley falls prey to a mass of shaving cream at
yesterday's "cream your coach" competition, part of the fraternity's annual
Derby Days to raise money for charity.
Reagan offers aid, to
A v
Arizonra food v Cii s
WOMEN and POWER
A Series
OCTOBER 6
LANA POLLACK
State Senator
8 P.M. AT
GUILD HOUSE, 820 Monroe
Program s sponsored by GuildHouse Campus
Ministry and funded in port by Michigan
Commission/United Ministries in Higher
Education
(For more information call
GUILD HOUSE, 662-5189)
President Reagan declared Arizona a
major disaster area yesterday, but
some embittered flood victims com-
plained of the way state authorities
have handled the storm crisis that left
15 known dead, two missing, thousands
homeless and caused damage
estimated at about $300 million.
In what is being called Arizona's wor-
st disaster of the century, American
Red Cross surveys indicated about 3,000
houses, mobile homes, and apartment
knits had been destroyed or damaged
by the flooding that began over the
weekend. The numbers were expected
to climb.
THE presidential declaration, which
will bring federal recnstruction funds to
the state, coincided with rising fears of
looting and disease in Arizona's flood-'
ravaged south. Police at Clifton near
the New Mexico border slapped the
debris-strewn copper mining town with
a 10 p.m.to-dawn curfew to ward off
looters.
The Red Cross put out a call for more
volunteer nurses Tuesday night as it
opened a 16th emergency shelter, the 15
others housing more than 2,900 people,
to accommodate evacuees from the
Holly Acres subdivision southwest of
Phoenix.
The declaration makes the state and
local governments eligible for 75 per-
cent of the costs of rebuilding public
facilities, and also provides residents
and businesses with low-interest loans
and other assistance.
"Unfortunately, Arizona is not com-
pletely out of the woods yet," the
National Weather Service said in a
statement.
VISA hires coordinator
(Continued from Page 3)
"(STUDENT participation) is going
to be enormous," Gittleman said.
"Students seem to be out there and
willing to work."
In December, the assembly will
evaluate how effective Gittleman's ef-
forts have been, and determine whether
to continue funding the position,
Rowland said.
MSA may fund more positions to help
coordinate volunteers, Rowland said, if
it is apparent that one person cannot
handle the work.
SOME STUDENTS who work with
MSA originally suggested the assenbly
fund several positions that would not
only coordinate volunteers, but would
help to better organize MSA's commit-
tees. Richard Layman, who helped
formulate the proposal for Gittleman's
position, wanted the assembly to fund
four separate jobs.
"I don't think the volunteer coor-
dinator will work," Layman said. "It
lacks the mutually reinforcing
positions that are necessary."
Layman said he originally proposed
that three other workers assist the
volunteer coordinator. The three would
deal with public relations, organization,
and helping committees to focus their
goals and ideas.
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