CIC, PTA Offer Guide To Parents

As Congress places increased scrutiny on programming content in the post-Janet Jackson era, the cable industry and the National PTA last Friday unveiled a new guide to help parents control their children’s viewing.

The new report, “Navigating the Children’s Media Landscape: A Parent’s and Caregiver’s Guide,” provides educational tools to help parents take control of TV viewing and other media activities.

Cable in the Classroom executive director Peggy O’Brien said the new guides would be distributed to parents through cable companies and the National PTA, which will disseminate it to its 6 million members.

Cable companies can link to the report or download it from CIC’s Web site ciconline.org and the National PTA’s Web site (www.pta.org/parentinvolvement).

The report, which CIC commissioned from the American Institutes for Research, found public attitudes about children’s exposure to media have changed dramatically since the effort began a year ago.

“We began working on this report in what seems like another century,” O’Brien said.

States News Service