European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 06, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday augusts 1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 . Blue puts a Nail into networks7 coffin Cal Thomas the broadcast networks Abc Abc and lbs Are in decline. They have been losing viewers who Tell pollsters they Don t like the increasing amounts of sex violence and profanity in to shows. The network response get those viewers Back by showing More sex violence and profanity. That s the strategy adopted by Abc with n. . Blue television s first r rated series coming this fall. Network executives see themselves As More like pied pipers leading the unwary into the sewer. Vulgar Lan Guage and explicit sex scenes will be regular fare. Even some Liberal re viewers not note for wishing to put the brakes on anything Are unsettled by this. Program. Washington Post to critic Tom Shales writes of the show s Star Dennis Franz stands As an embittered alcoholic cop on the courtroom Steps having an argument with a stubborn female District attorney who uses the phrase Piso Facto in her re Marks. Suddenly the cop grabs his Crotch and shouts hey Piso Facto this you Pussy Little Bitch " . Blue will rewrite network to s lexicon by using in the Pilot show words never before heard in prime time. In the sex scenes there reportedly Are Bare breasts and the backsides of the cop and a prostitute As they go at it in s next for network to you la find it in the adult Section of your local video store. Rick do brow to critic for the los Angeles times wrote that such pro Grams have a corrosive effect on Public taste and that they Are a danger to National it is hypocritical in the extreme for networks to put on such shows and then lament on their news programs the verbal and physical assaults on women and girls. Where do those neighbourhood beasts who victimize women and girls get permission to talk and act the Way they do certainly one source is the toxic waste dump that poses As television entertainment. Proof that network executives and hol Lywood producers who create this stuff live in their own Little worlds perhaps on other worlds is research indicating the Public is tuning out not in. As recently As 1987,18 weekly television series captured 30 percent of the National Tele vision audience with the top rated the Cosby show getting s3 percent. In the 1991-92 season Only two weekly series averaged 30 percent 60 minutes and Roseanne. Last season three regular series attracted 30 percent or More of the audience 60 minutes cheers and Home improvement. N. . Blue creator Steven Bochco and network executives argue they must do More explicit shows to compete with Cable television. But a look at Cable shows something they ignore. Basic Cable which where i live includes such serv ices As american movie classics the family Channel and Nickelodeon is growing in viewership but the Cable channels that show the fare Abc thinks Means hot ratings is in decline. Accord ing to the Cable television advertising Bureau Premium channels like Playboy Hob and Showtime that feature sex Vio Lence and profanity lost 10 percent in average weekly viewing hours in a recent Survey. Not coincidental la Basic Cable in creased its audience by 10 percent. A 1991 Gallup Survey found that 62 percent of americans Don t believe Tele vision represents their values. Yet Boch co says his show is a Little More reflective of today s maybe in his closed society of Hollywood make be Lieve. If the reviews and Advance Billing for . Blue Are Correct the show rep resents a level of network irresponsibility unseen in the history of the medium. It makes sense that the sponsors who underwrite the destruction of what s left of moral values and openly promote vulgarity should not be subsidized by consumer patronage of their products. Network executives can t absolve themselves of personal responsibility for contributing to the cultural rot by invoking the first amendment any More than corporate polluters can escape prosecution by invoking the profit motive. Young children will watch this stuff no matter what parents do and other View ers no doubt will be adversely affected by the portrayal of the abnormal As Normal. It is a tragedy that this once great medium which now rarely rises above the moral level of a Landfill now increasingly plays Only to the Low and the base. It is Why i no longer watch prime time television preferring the Good stuff on Basic Cable. After some initial curiosity 1 suspect n. . Blue will drive even More viewers away for Good. C los Antolos times Syndicate Clinton s new ageism Best in flood reactions president Clinton has taken More than a Little teasing for his huggy Talky of so sensitive approach to life. But it s served him Well during a summer of trag Edy and recent weeks Clinton has offered Solace to discouraged flood victims to friends and family stunned by the apparent suicide of Vince Foster a Whitehouse aider even to the parents of a japanese Exchange student shot to death in in what has to be a first he turned up on a flood Aid telethon an 800-number on screen below his face to encourage donations and assure flood zone questioners that we re going to work hard to help is a different kind of chief executive the embodiment of new age empathy in touch and at ease with his own feelings and everyone else s As Well. But his people skills until now have attracted More ribbing than respect. This is after All the president who put such a Premium on bonding that he invited his Cabinet members to share secrets at a Camp David people together to talk Clinton believes and problems can t help but get solved. Or at the very feast people won t walk away his economic Summit his spotted owl Summit and a flood Summit at which he sometimes sounded More like a grief Counselor than a is almost a collective emotional process that people go through when it first hits folks Are Bravand Good Humoured and courageous Clinton told embattled flood state governors. But then the reality of the losses sinks in and a grief takes Over. And then if everyone is not at least doing their Best a lot of anger can come in the Wake of that a widely published photograph showed Clin ton hugging a flood weary Iowa woman who into tears while telling him her problems. The scene recalled another Winter 1992, just before new Hampshire s crucial presidential primary. There was Clinton with wet eyes kneeling to embrace an elderly woman who had choked up As she described How she could t afford to buy her prescription drugs. It was a moment that crystallized the difference Between Clinton and former president Bush who insisted that i care but never managed to convince new Hampshire s recession Vic Tims that he really did. Bush with his Yankee re serve and habits of an earlier generation had trouble express ing emotion in difficult Circum stances. On a Hospital visit to a Man injured in the los an Geles riots last year Bush discussed damage to his vacation compound in Kennebunkport Maine. He left it to his wife Barbara to do the emoting when the two visited South Florida after Hurricane Andrew. Bush did not speak at his Mother s funeral last fall and remarked at the time that he was not Good at that Jill Lawrence sort of thing. He once said his first thoughts on being shot out of the sky during world War ii were of the separation Between Church and state. President Reagan came through when the nation needed it most in his own joking words after the attempt on his life in 1981 and with help from an Elo quent speech writer after the 1986 challenger disaster. But the regal reagans did not exactly project warmth or inspire tearful confidences. And despite their clan s strained relations it s hard to imagine them sittingdown with a family therapist As Clinton and vice presi Dent Al Gore have said they did when their families were going through difficult times. Public officials Don t always win Points for seeming sensitive. When sen. Jay Rockefeller was governor of West Virginia a state laced with Steep winding Mountain roads he went on the radio to warn citizens that a huge blizzard was on the Way. He urged them to leave work Stock up on flashlights candles and food and Hunker Down. But the blizzard did t happen. The jokes started flowing immediately along with complaints that Rockefeller had overreacted even panicked. For Clinton too the danger is that displays of caring will be confused with a Lack of toughness. As he tries to prove he has the Backbone to Deal with lobbyists con Gress and the military that s the last impression he wants to leave. But the commander in chief sometimes has to be the consoler in chief. And Clinton is Well suited for the task. C Tho associated pros
