• Broadcasting & Cable, Thursday, May 17, 2007 10:50 AM

Media companies are pushing back at the Federal Communications Commission and D.C. politicians with the help of an academic report claiming there is no evidence that TV violence causes children to be violent. An issue paper from University of Toronto professor Jonathan Freedman, while conceding a correlation between violent media and aggression, says that is not the same as causation.

The report was issued by a Washington think tank funded by major media companies. The FCC's recent report to Congress says that research shows TV violence is harmful to youngsters, but Freedman insists that's not true. He says advocates claiming evidence for the connection are wrong--and need to be challenged.

He notes the FCC did no real analysis of the research. Counters one FCC spokesperson: "The Violence Report was very clear to differentiate between causation and correlation. It said the data on causation is mixed/inconclusive at this time, but that there is strong evidence of correlation and that alone warrants some action to be taken."

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