Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 7, 1993 TAG: 9312070169
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Clinton said he plans to meet with leaders from the nation's entertainment industry to encourage them to develop a "disciplined, organized initiative" to promote those themes in their work.
Violence in America's cities and its connection to violence on TV and in the movies was the main theme of a White House interview with editors and correspondents from Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
Suggesting the climate is ripe for radical change in the way Americans respond to violence, he pointed to the powerful public response to the new Brady law requiring a five-day wait to buy a handgun.
Clinton stressed that today's explosion of violence stems from complex social and economic roots, but said it was particularly influenced by pop culture.
The president described the steady economic decline of America's cities, accompanied by a second trend of accelerating family breakdown.
Those forces formed a kind of social "vacuum," Clinton said.
The lives of people growing up in this underclass "vacuum" lack structure, Clinton emphasized, in contrast to the lives of middle-class Americans, which are organized around family, work and community institutions.
Presidential counselor David Gergen emphasized that "we're not blaming the industry for the violence. No one knows how much influence that television or movies have on people's behavior."
TV network executives have met recently with Attorney General Janet Reno and others at the Justice Department and at the White House to discuss these concerns, Gergen said. Reno bluntly warned the entertainment industry in October testimony before Congress that if it doesn't clean up its act, government will - but the White House takes a much softer approach.
by CNB