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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS TELEVISION NEWS TERRIFIES AMERICAN CHILDREN merican children grow up in a culture where violence is pervasive in movies, television and even song lyrics. But researchers reported on Monday 17 August that many children trace their fears about life to one key source: TV news. "What we call 'news' has become so sen- sational," said Joanne Cantor, a psycholo- gist from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. "It's all the news that's fit to ter- rify." Cantor and Barbara Wilson of the University of California, Santa Barbara, told a meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco that fresh research indicated that television news, particularly local news programs, can lead to elevated fears among children. Pointing to the explosive growth of tele- vision news outlets and a trend towards more graphic pictures of violence and mayhem, the two psychologists said televi- sion news should be closely monitored by parents and teachers for its 'fright factor’ for young children. "As children begin to understand the dif- ferences between fantasy and reality, the news becomes more frightening," Cantor noted. "These fright reactions can be intense and debilitating." Much of the fright revolves around sto- ries that children feel are close to their lives. While younger children are often terri- ied by pictures of natural disasters, wars and famine, older children focus their fears on stories of crime and violence—particu- arly when they are directed at children. "Children need to have some reasonable amount of information about the dangers that are important to them," Wilson said. "But what they are getting is exaggerated ‘ears of things that are not necessarily the dangers they are going to encounter." In one recent study conducted among rimary school children in Santa Barbara, Wilson found that 51 per cent could describe in detail a recent television news story that had frightened them—ranging rom gang violence to a natural disaster. These fears are amplified by the fact that children, much more than adults, are likely to believe what they see on the television was truthful all or most of the time. "There is a very high perceived reality for TV news among kids," Wilson said. (Source: Andrew Quinn, Reuters, 18 August 1998) the trial judge, a spare copy from McDonald's, and then have the defendants pay a much lower sum—around £1,000 (US$1,650)—for a third copy on computer disc. Concerned about the tens of thousands of pages of paperwork that will fill the chambers when arguments in the longest trial in British history begin again in January 1999, the judge called for "the largest court in the building". To learn more about the McLibel case, visit the McSpotlight website at . (Source: Dirk Beveridge, "British "McLibel' Case Drags On", Associated Press, 27 July 1998) MCcLIBEL CASE RETURNS TO COURT ON APPEAL he long-running defamation case involving McDonald's and two activists who handed out pamphlets criti- cising the burger behemoth returned to a British court, the week of 27 July. The "McLibel Two", Dave Morris and Helen Steel, are appealing the 1997 judge's ruling which maintained that the two had libelled McDonald's with their pamphlets. Despite the setback for the two, the judge slammed McDonald's on many counts, agreeing with Morris and Steel that the corporation does pay low wages and exploit children through its advertising, and is "culpably responsible" for animal cruelty. Morris and Steel are maintaining in their appeal that these points from their pam- phlet were so damning that they could not have harmed McDonald's reputation with other statements about the company's envi- ronmentally unsound exploitation of its Third World suppliers, its anti-union prac- tices in Britain and the general unhealthi- ness of its high-fat fare. In court on Monday, Morris and Steel, who are representing themselves as they can't afford attorneys, said they were unable CONSPIRACY THEORY POLL ccording to the results of a poll con- ducted by the Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University last year: "Americans increasingly suspect the worst about their government. They think Uncle Sam may be a mass murderer, or a drug dealer, or a presidential assassin, or even a collaborator with the 'aliens'." Results of the poll are summarised here: 1) Fifty-one per cent believe it is either very likely or somewhat likely that federal officials were "directly responsible" for President Kennedy's sination. 2) More than one-third suspect that the US Navy, either by accident or on purpose, shot down TWA Flight 800. weve ys said they were unable to pay £20,000 (US$33,000) to make three sets of the three- volume, 20,000-page trial tran- script, one for each appellate judge. The judges decided that they would try to obtain a used copy of the tran- script from news. In Wilson's study, 94 per cent of the children said they believed television news NEXUS -7 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1998