CONGRESS SHOULD NOT MANAGE TV PROGRAMS

Add this now to the list of enterprises Congress wants to manage: television programming. U.S. Sen. Paul Simon is leading a charge on Capitol Hill to curb violence on television. Like Sen. Simon, we believe the savage content of some programs is out of hand. Unlike the senator, we don't believe government should be in the business of dictating what the American public watches on television. It's a bad, if well-meant, idea.

Some opponents of governmental regulation argue that theatrical violence only mirrors societal violence. This is a stretch. While the small communities of Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois are not immune to the harm people do to one another, the murder rate on television during any given night far surpasses what can be found on a real-world police blotter. Networks and producers have been continually irresponsible in letting the level of violence escalate; this mirrors not society, but bad taste.

Now comes a prominent senator who informs the television industry it better clean up its act in the next two months or face a congressional directive to do so. No one should underestimate the resolve of Congress to embrace a high-profile issue of this sort when the drudgery of dealing with health care and welfare reform awaits. But is Congress best disposed to claim itself as overseer of "L.A. Law" or the latest movie of the week? Does the American public have a say in what succeeds and what doesn't on the airwaves and cable, or should federal lawmakers be called upon to act on the public's behalf when a coffee-table remote previously sufficed?

If regulations are approved, someone ultimately must make a decision on what is acceptable and what isn't. Do you want your elected representative, or that person's bureaucratic designee, making that choice?

(There is an eyebrow-raising aside to this. Sen. Simon threatens the television industry with regulation if it doesn't shape up and is accorded with straight-up reporting. When Vice President Dan Quayle merely suggested that television glorified out-of-wedlock parenthood, he was vilified. Is it that the senator from Illinois hold a liberal standing, or does he know something Vice President Quayle didn't: Sen. Simon promotes "government by threat.")

It is easy to deplore the current state of television and its willingness to portray violence with a brutal regularity. Those who run a medium that has such a sweeping impact should be more responsible. However, is Congress the body to address this? Have Americans become such a helpless bunch that they must turn to Washington with a "save us" mentality? We don't believe a law is needed for regulating violence on television. This is a marketplace decision. Act in your own interest and decline to watch programs that weigh too heavily on your humanity.