Joseph B. Wirthlin Quotes

I avoid all the language and nudity and violence and everything. I have enough of that at home.

If it's something that you are opposed to or you don't want your children or family to see, then do not watch it, and the market can send a message.

We sort of have given up on the idea of taking any sort of personal responsibility for what we see. I don't understand it at all. There are many things that I won't let my kids watch.

Take responsibility about what you have on your TV, and about what you are out there supporting.

TV is a major force in our lives - a FORCE. It must be handled very carefully, both its censure and its artistic honesty.

I like to protect children. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having adult programming for mature adults that can selectively decide what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch.

We have pleaded to the entertainment industry to raise their standards and protect our children.

Even in an enlightened democracy, the media have to check themselves to make sure they are not contributing to an unnecessary mass hysteria.

Adults should be intelligent enough to know what they want - if you don't like it, then don't consume it. A rating system for kids and teens is more important. Especially for violent shows.

Bad behaviour on TV is quite nauseating and putting off.

Broadcasters have a responsibility to serve the public interest and protect Americans from objectionable content, particularly during the hours when children are likely to be watching.

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore. A lot of it isn't the kind of thing you can feel comfortable with watching with your kids. And I still feel that way even though, now, my kids are in their 30s.

My dignity and good television - they'll never meet.

I won't go to movies with permissiveness, four-letter words, or violence. Show me 'E.T.' and 'Chariots of Fire' instead. That's entertainment, not exploitation of the human body.

I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television, yob newspapers, and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad, school, police, church who used to set the standards, now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.

I think the media needs a little criticizing now, as it did in the '80s, don't you?

I'm just a regular guy. All these ideas that children shouldn't watch me, I'm going to be confusing, all this stuff, it's crazy.

Television isn't inherently good or bad. You go to a bookstore, there are how many thousands of books, but how many of those do you want? Five? Television's the same way. If you're going to show people stuff, television is the way to go. Words and pictures show things.

If we want parents to be discerning about what children are watching then we need to put stuff in there for them to watch, too.

It is impossible to disregard such an important medium as television. We should know how to use it, learn to work in it and express new values in it.

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.

My opinion is that you cannot really blame cinema for the result of what is somebody's mindset. I think it's just entertainment. For me, I've always believed in doing things that I can sit and watch with my family. So far I think I've stuck to that, and I will also in the future.

I don't think we use television the way we should or the way the inventors intended.

What is acceptable in our culture, I think, is really detrimental. I think we ought to have a little more ownership over the kind of material and the content that we put in front of people, especially young people.

I've had horror movies thrown at me and I just don't want to do any because violence isn't really good for society.