NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (503) 235-8012
For Immediate Release: September 28th, 2000
Commercial Alert Praises Hillary Clinton's Proposed Ban on Ads Targeted at Preschoolers
Commercial Alert applauded First Lady Hillary Clinton for proposing to ban advertising targeted to preschoolers, and asked her to explain her ideas in greater detail. According to yesterday’s New York Times, Mrs. Clinton said “Too many companies simply see our children as little cash cows that they can exploit.”
“Mrs. Clinton’s worthy proposal should have been enacted by Congress years ago,” said Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert. “Preschoolers desperately need protection from corporations that promote our noxious culture of violent entertainment, video games, gambling, materialism, alcohol, junk food and tobacco. But older children are vulnerable and need these safeguards too.”
“Parents can’t cope with the fusillade of ads on their own, “ Ruskin said. “They just need help.”
Mrs. Clinton also proposed a ban on advertising in public elementary schools. Such a proposal apparently would not substantially affect Channel One, an in-school marketing company based in New York that compels 8 million children to watch two minutes of ads each school day. “Mrs. Clinton proposal would be a small step forward, but ought to be extended to older children too. The public classrooms are for learning, not advertising.”
“Mrs. Clinton ought to explain precisely what she would do to protect children from the influences of corporate advertisers,” Ruskin said. “For example, would she support a ban corporations such as Channel One, ZapMe! Coca-Cola and Pepsi from marketing in the public schools? Would she prohibit the use of the public schools to promote violent entertainment?”
Last year, Commercial Alert wrote a letter, signed by sixty psychologists, asking the American Psychological Association to protect children against the use of psychology to influence or exploit children for commercial purposes. The letter is at http://www.commercialalert.org/releases/apaletrel.html.
Commercial Alert opposes corporate exploitation of children and the excesses of advertising, marketing and commercialism. Commercial Alert’s web address is http://www.commercialalert.org.
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