The News is Too Bad for Children to Watch on TV

The early evening TV used to have a watershed called the Kiddies Truce on BBC TV. Children were expected to go to bed a lot earlier. Those days will never come back but there are serious issues to discuss about the subject material to which children are now being exposed from an early age.

Psychologist, Steve Ashley, discussed with me just how the material children are watching and listening to might be affecting them in ways which will not become apparent until they become older.

We discussed the editorial decisions that are being made in the newsrooms around the world and I raised then point that dead bodies are shown more readily on Spanish television than on UK TV.

I have had to make my own editorial decisions about what I felt was suitable for my own show and I feel some editors certainly don't have the same values I keep.

Steve felt that the BBC had tried to address the type of TV news that would be more suitable for children in a programme called Newsround which was aimed at the younger viewer and would highlight the news of the day.

We then looked at the parental role in all this. It is always assuming that the parents do monitor what their children might see. We both felt children would not be too impoverished if the children didn't see the news on TV.

This is an interesting discussion which also extended into aspects of the life penalty for murder and the fact that society pays twice. First in the loss of an innocent life and then the money needed to keep the perpetrator in prison.