Other Columns by Paul M. Weyrich
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It was only ten years ago that House Republicans, particularly the freshmen swept into office in 1994, were dead-set on reducing funds for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Sesame Street's "Big Bird" did not go the way of the dodo bird despite the best efforts of the "revolutionaries." The PBS webpage states that 18% of its funding comes from its parent, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, federal grants and contracts. PBS continues receiving Federal subsidies despite the continued growth of cable and satellite networks, which broadcast quality programming to consumers. Undoubtedly much television broadcasting is indeed a vast wasteland but American citizens seeking quality programming can find it via the commercial market. This only makes PBS's latest venture one that is deserving of the outrage of Americans worried about how our young people are raised.

PBS, Comcast, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment are working to launch a 24-hour cable channel for preschool children. Honestly, I would have less to say about this deal were it to involve only Comcast and HIT Entertainment. There is as much to say given the involvement of PBS since I never believed PBS was a legitimate function for government spending even when we had the Big Three networks. The fact that its programming was heavily tilted toward the left only increased my interest in zeroing out its Federal Government funding. That the Federal Government is engaged in programming that will deter the healthy development of young Americans is an outrage.

On average children watch four hours of TV a day. That is four hours a child could spend at play, which would mean burning calories and energy. Studies have shown that excessive TV viewing can increase weight among young Americans. Another recent study by University of Washington researchers determined that there was a link between excessive TV viewing and bullying. Children who spent time reading and with their parents had less behavioral problems.

A study by Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis and several other researchers on "Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children," was published in the April 2004 journal Pediatrics, found that "early exposure to television was associated with subsequent attentional problems. This finding was present even while controlling for a number of potential confounding factors, including prenatal substance use and gestational age, measures of maternal psychopathology and socioeconomic status." In fairness the researchers admitted that their study did not take into account the quality of programs watched and that the measure they used to determine attentional problems was not equivalent to clinically diagnosed Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The researchers' definition of attentional problems was taken from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBC) and there is a strong match between the problems listed on the CBC and those used to define ADHD. Christakis and his co-authors conclude that it makes sense to severely curtail TV watching among very young children as a preventative step to inhibit attentional problems. If common sense has not led parents to this conclusion then they can take the advice of pediatricians.

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