2001 mediamarch 3
Took place in Central London on Saturday 19th May 2001: ¨culminating in a public rally in TRAFALGAR SQUARE with invited speakers
PRESS RELEASE
mediamarch 3 touched a raw nerve with their call to clean up TV and media
300 people of many faiths and backgrounds marched through Whitehall on May 19th to a rally in Trafalgar Square to demand that the government strengthen the obscenity laws and regulate the media accordingly - to protect our children and our society. Their ongoing petition has already received 30,000 signatures. The public rally was addressed by Olave Snelling (Premier Christian Radio), Paul Woolley (CARE) and Dr Majid Katme (Muslim Council of Britain).
On Sunday morning, May 20th, Miranda Suit - a joint organiser of the mediamarch movement - was interviewed during BBC1's "Heaven and Earth" Show and argued her case against opposing views expressed by Dr Guy Cumberbatch (researcher for the Home Office and the British Board of Film Classification). The telephone poll during the show elicited the second highest response ever (over 7,000) plus many emails and phone calls:-
The question was 'Is the media corrupting society?' 92% agreed with mediamarch ...that it is.
On 21st May teletext conducted its own poll:-
The question 'Are you sick of TV sleaze?' got a 97% 'yes' response
Mediamarch's case has long been vindicated by public opinion and it now challenges the political parties to take on the media tycoons and enforce proper media regulation for the sake of our children and our society. The prevalence of explicit violence, sex and bad language in UK media of all types is playing a large part in increasing family breakdown, as well as encouraging violent and sexual crime and the media should therefore be given effective legal constraints. It is teaching our children the wrong things.
Organisers, Miranda Suit and Pippa Smith, mothers of 7 children in all (6 of them teenagers) are themselves Christians and say: 'We do not want any more media-inspired tragedies like the cases of James Bulger and Michael Moss ! The government must act now before it is too late! Ordinary people must put pressure on the government to give this issue the priority it has so long deserved.
"This is not just a matter of taste - we need to speak out on behalf of the victims of our media - especially the children - in just the same way as we seek to help victims of injustice and persecution. "
WE NEED YOUR HELP FOR THE SAKE OF OUR CHILDREN AND OUR SOCIETY
What can you do?. . . Please see 'mediamarch 4' and 'contact us' pages
A speech given at the Mediamarch 3 Rally by Olave Snelling,
(Broadcaster with Premier Christian Radio and Chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Council)
"Go into a pub with your mates, chat over a family dinner, hear what a gaggle of students are talking about, listen to a group of friends chatting, and you can bet your bottom dollar that something to do with the media will crop up, something someone has heard on radio, seen on TV or at a movie, something they've read in a newspaper or magazine, found on the Internet. No doubt about it! Media plays a very big part in our lives.
Look at the effect of Media on our lives! One of the reasons why we're here today is that we wish to draw a line and say 'Enough! Enough of the negative downward gravitational pull and the pollutant effect of rotten elements of Media output upon our children. Enough is Enough!' But as we do so, we recognise that to talk about the Media as one great huge lump is just plain daft. We have to live in the real world and though it might be hard for children to grow up with the reality of ethnic violence, wars and rumours of wars, murder and mayhem and madness, there is no question that, as they grow up, children become aware of the world they live in. We enjoy excellent current affairs reporting, news and documentaries, we have good broadsheets and a free Press, things unheard of in many countries around the world. On television we enjoy many wonderful programmes, very funny comedies when they're not outrageously near the bone. When it comes to rag mags and papers, well, that's something else.
No, it's the drip, drip, drip effect of violent scenes, bad language, explicitly sexual and especially violently explicitly sexual stuff and every kind of degrading material, plus a pre-occupation with the occult, that gradually changes the mindset of a culture. This we find mainly in soaps, dramas, films. I'm particularly concerned about violence. The more violence people see, the more they are desensitised to ever more horrific violence, both real and fictional. At last in this country, the link between on-screen violence and actual violent behaviour has been acknowledged in spite of studies from the United States that have been saying that for decades. In 1970 children by the age of 16 would have seen 16,000 killings on TV. In 1993 it is estimated that a child reaching 16 would have seen over 50,000 murders on TV. Sky's move channel provides at least 100 murders per week. An American study discovered that when TV was introduced into a community which had previously not been able to watch it, the rates of physical aggression increased by 160% in two years. The Americans have been at the forefront of research into the effects of screen violence but ironically, it is at the door of Hollywood and its global influence that we might be tempted to put the increasing global climate of violence and the desensitising of a telly-addicteed and a movie-mad world.
The breakdown of family life and the effect of violent videos, films and TV is given time and again as a reason for violent anti-social, delinquent and criminal behaviour among young people. Take the killing of James Bulger. His murder mirrored almost point by point scenes in a violent video. Take the killing of Damilola Taylor. Residents in north Peckham are convinced that the identity of Damilola's killers is known but it is possible that early attempts to gain confessions hardened the suspects' resolve to keep quiet. A senior Scotland Yard source told The Observer newspaper that many of those arrested in connection with the murder suffered from 'anomie', a psychological term for a total lack of social or moral standards. Officers working on the case were shocked to discover a level of alienation and lack of respect for authority that many of them had never previously encountered. There is a sub-culture growing in our society that is beyond any appeal to anything human. Is it possible that these marginalized, totally violent and totally anti-social young people find their role-models in violent videos, films, and TV? Maybe not the only cause but a strong contributory cause.
Society is being damaged by values being presented on television programmes, people living together as partners rather than as married couples. Dysfunctional family relationships are prominently emphasised in soaps, films and dramas, promiscuity is presented as the norm. It isn't surprising that many young people are confused. The media must bear a considerable burden of responsibility for this.
Perhaps one of the most significant developments in broadcasting has been the rapid growth of profanity. Almost daily Christ's name is used as a swear word. Programme makers are fully aware of how offensive this is but they carry right on. Quite rightly they would not dream of using the name of Allah or Mohammed in this manner, yet the denigration of the name of God and Jesus Christ, sacred to millions of Britons, is considered as par for the course.
Religious broadcasting has been totally marginalized in the United Kingdom and almost completely removed from most local commercial radio stations. On television Christian programmes are pushed to the margins of the schedules and broadcast at anti-social times. An MP said to me a few weeks' ago: "Interesting, isn't it, that there is so much talk about the breakdown of society, the breakdown of the family, the shame of a society floundering for values, yet we marginalize religious broadcasting, try to shut down the only terrestrial Christian radio station in the country and seemingly have no objection to the most incredible violence on television and almost explicit porn on late night telly." No, we have to speak out. Premier Radio is under threat because of what will become broadcasting legislation, other Christian broadcasters are faced with blatant discrimination. The Christian faith, the foundation of our society and culture, has influenced virtually every aspect of our national life, and shaped our culture and our laws, yet it is dismissed, poked fun at and marginalized. It's absolute rubbish that Christianity is a minority interest. There are more people in church every Sunday than there are all week at all sporting fixtures, including the national obsession, football. And of those who aren't necessarily church-goers, a sizeable proportion of a population of 60-odd million are Christian.
We have watchdog authorities but they seem utterly ineffective in doing anything substantive about standards in the media. Broadcasting companies dismiss the concerns of those who dare to protest against an increasing content of sex, violence and foul language and put them into the category of 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'! That's just not so. It's not just Christians who react violently to the pollution of the mind. It's Jewish people, Muslim people, Hindu people, people across all ethnic communities in this land. We are grateful for the good things we enjoy and the excellence of sections of media output. But, in the name of God, we appeal to the 'gate-keepers' of television and the media generally, praying that they aren't like the killers of DamilolaTaylor, beyond appeal to common humanity. I've worked in television, film, radio and print. I know what ratings wars and markets are about. But it's not rocket science to see the effect on the young people of our nation of the negative, gratuitously violent and gratuitously sexually explicit elements of media output. If you want self-regulation, for God's sake, literally, examine much of what goes out in the name of entertainment and ask yourselves. "What is this doing?" You have the power to affect what are the most powerful mediums of communication in all of history. The writer of the Book of Proverbs says, 'As a man thinks, so is he.' You too must have children. Have a heart, I say!! Are you not a man, a woman, with a heart of flesh!"