TeleVISIONS (January/February 1976)

TECHNOLOGY The Heartbreak Of X-Radiation TV’s terrible toll By CHIP LORD Warning: television sets may be (are) dangerous to your health. On July 25, 1975, Curtis Schreier, Doug Michels and I—members of Ant Farm—joined forces with Dr. Rolin Finston, Senior Health Physicist of Stanford University’s Health Physics Office, to make random visits to forty San Francisco homes to learn if any of the sets were leaking radiation. The findings were startling. Ten of the sets leaked radiation and one was leaking at a level which exceeded the government standard. By now hundreds of thousands of color television sets have been recalled by their manufacturers, beginning in 1967 with General Electric’s recall of 154,000 sets for giving off excessive radiation. X-radiation or X-rays are a by-product of electrons being shot from a cathode tube at 25,000 volts. Color sets have three cathode guns and are more likely to allow rays to escape. But no one has really been able to determine what unsafe means. The U.S. Bureau of Radiological Health says that color sets must not emit more than .5 milliroentgens per hour. This standard was adopted in 1968; prior to that the standard was 12.5 mr/hr or 25 times higher. In 1969, the Suffolk County Public Health Service of Long Island, New York reported that 20 per cent of 5,000 sets examined over a two year period were emitting dangerous rays. Dr. Finston says, "Any man-made radiation offers some level of risk. Scientists establish the level at whatever they can successfully research. Below a certain level, they don’t have the techniques to determine harm.” Thinking has changed about the danger of low-level X-rays. Dr. H.D. Youmans of the Bureau of Radiological Health explained that previously, "We questioned whether television radiation was important because it was so low compared with the output of an X-ray machine. We thought the rays would be soft and _ nonpenetrating. Instead we found the rays penetrated the first few inches of the body as 100 kilovolt diagnostic X-rays. You get a uniform dosage to the eyes, testes and bone marrow.” His colleague, Dr. Norman Telles, summed up the argument, ’’We have made the assumption that there is no threshold, that radiation to the zero level evokes aresponse from body tissues.” Appearing before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, the U.S. Public Health Service reported wide variations from the same models, with a high in one tube of 800,000 milliroentgens per hour or 1.6 million times the 1968 safety level of .5 mr/hr Dr. Robert Elder, the director of the CITIZEN ACTION Women’s Task Force Indicts CPB Record On Hiring and Programming But what will they do about it? By VICTORIA COSTELLO Having accepted a report which presents a scathing attack on its own programming and employment policies regarding women, the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting now faces the task of implementing its far-reaching recommendations. Under increasing pressure from women’s and minority groups within its Advisory Council of National Organizations (ACNO) and in order to shape up its image before the critical Congressional hearings on CPB’s long-range funding, the funding arm of the nation’s public broadcasting system authorized the establishment of a Task Force on Women in Public Broadcasting in November, 1974. The 15-member task force, comprised primarily of individuals within various public TV entities, completed the report a year later, presenting it publicly on November 15, 1975. Principal authors of the report were two consultants, Caroline Isber, a producer for National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) which is part of WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., and Muriel Cantor, American University sociology professor and director of a previous study on women in commercial TV’s programming for the National Organization for Women. The CPB Task Force Report, which focuses upon both employment and pro gramming, offers few surprises in its scathing attack of the male-dominated public TV industry which creates programming which is overwhelmingly male in onair appearances. But the fact that a CPB-supported study has presented such a critique could offer what Task Force member Cathy Irwin calls a concrete and systematic set of facts for the use of women and minority groups in obtaining greater responsiveness from the tax-supported broadcasting system. Employment: a grim picture The Task Force’s investigation into the extent to which women are employed and integrated into policy-making operations in the Public Broadcasting System including public television and National Public Radio stations, revealed a grim picture in its 1974 employment statistics. Women held 29% of all jobs at radio stations. At the higher managerial levels, men outnumber women ten to one and most women employed are found in low-level secretarial and clerical positions. Programming: almost no women The programming study of one typical week of public television and radio focused on the under-representation of women but shed much light on the larger issue of what and who are left out of the content of public broadcasting. On 28 adult general programs (including public affairs, promotions, Bureau of Radiological Health, testified at Congressional hearings that small dosages of radiation could cause genetic damage. But science does not know how these symptoms manifest themselves since it takes a long time for tissue damage to develop. The U.S. Public Health Service has warned viewers to sit six feet away from the set. But, as a recent Associated Press report discloses, they “could not say why this was judged to be a safe distance, nor what harm the viewer might expect.” The arguments over TV radiation are elaborated in chapter 12 of John Nash Ott’s book Health and Light published by the Devin-Adair Co., Old Greenwich, Connecticutt. Rep. Paul Rogers of Florida, co-author of the Radiation Control Act says that Ott, “got us started in 1967” on the road toward control of radiation from electronic products. Ott, known for his time-lapse sequences in Walt Disney films, got into experiments in light energy through his work in photographing plants under artificial lights. If the publisher of Health and Light would introduce the book in paperback, it would soon be a bestseller in the style of The Secret Life of Plants. Followed by the movie, magazine spreads, talk shows, etc., assuming of course the opposition to Ott’s work by the American Cancer Society and the A.M.A. would not escalate in scale. You see, what John Ott says in this book, and the excellent film of the same name, is that deficiencies in the quality and amount of natural light received by living organisms cause maladjustment, disease and possibly cancer. Ott’s own experiments produce some provocative questions about the physical danger of television sets. He experiments with rats‘placed in front of two tv sets, one shielded by lead, the other black paper. 15 “The rats protected only with the black paper became increasingly hyperactive and aggressive within from three to ten days, and then became _ progressively lethargic. At 30 days they were extremely lethargic and it was necessary to push them to make them move about the cage. The rats shielded by lead showed some similar abnormal behavioral patterns but to a considerably lesser degree.” “After the second TV set was in operation all the young rats in one of the cages died within ten to twelve days. Two of the rats that appeared extremely lethargic and almost dead were taken to the animal pathology laboratory of the Evanston Hospital where they soon died. Autopsies were immediately performed. Microscopic slides were made and the autopsy report indicated brain tissue damage in several instances.” Eighty per cent of the people approached by the Ant Farm survey team opened their doors readily and admitted that they had been worried about radiation. How can viewers tell if their color tv sets leak unsafe radiation? There is no way, according to experts, unless you take it to an X-ray detection laboratory. It is less likely to be leaky if it has a small screen, is brand new and hasn’t been to a repair shop in its life. Repair services often turn up the voltage to give a brighter picture which also increases the danger of X-radiation. If you spend time in a tv studio, in front of lit monitors, or under flourescent lights, be sure to get outside in the sunlight. It’s the only source of full spectrum light energy. Chip Lord, a member of the TeleVISIONS Network, is part of Ant Farm, the San Francisco-based arts group which has produced videotapes and art-events like the Eternal Frame, Media Burn, and Cadillac Ranch. “Americans on public TV appear as homogeneous, educated and concerned almost exclusively with the arts and public policy issues.” drama, and music categories) 11 programs had no women participants. These included: Wall Street Week, Aviation Weather, Black Perspective on the News, Democratic Response to President Ford, Washington Straight Talk, Behind the Lines, Washington Week in Review, Ascent of Man, Book Beat, Critic-at-Large, and Bill Moyers’ Journal. Of the total 236 participants in all 28 programs, there were 36 women, ten black men, and four black women. The Task Force aptly summarized their programming content analysis by reminding us that in fact women are 51% of the population, 40% of the work force, blacks are 10%, that-in 1972 there were 6.2 million families headed by women and 25% of these were black. ‘The programming report concluded with the following statement: It is clear from the results of the monitoring project that the content of public television and radio programming does not reflect the demographic composition of the United States. The overall picture that emerges in no way represents the heterogeneity of the population as far as sex, color, age and class are concerned. The topics discussed on adult programs are limited to those of interest to an upperclass, informed audience. Americans on public television appear as homogeneous, educated and concerned almost exclusively with the arts and public policy issues. Based on the data collected through the program monitoring and employment surveys, the Task Force made several general and a few specific recommendations to The CPB Board of Directors. To increase the number of women in decision-making positions, the Task Force’s recommendations included: e the appointment of a special head of women’s affairs at CPB. e special management seminars for women and minorities at individual stations. e filling of upper-level positions with lower level women employees. e a central clearinghouse of women aspirants for advancement and initial hiring. CPB should establish grants to: e provide greater training opportunities for women ® permit women to secure experience in major areas of broadcasting different from the jobs they now hold (perhaps by paying replacements during the period the women work at the other jobs) i eurge that all FCC job description categories appearing on station reporting forms more accurately reflect the degree of responsibility involved and that the FCC should immediately reevaluate and change these categories where necessary. The priority policy recommendation on programming is the integration of women on an equal basis in all program content, as well as recognition of the importance of developing specific women’s programming. Specific implementation recommendations included the following: e the placement of women as hosts, cohosts, and guests in public affairs programs. ein children’s programming, to encourage a balance of boys and girls and discourage role stereotyping in both real and imaginary characters. e CPB should search for and fund the performance of past and contemporary literary works by women. e the use of many more women as narrators and announcers (monitoring revealed that 95% were male). Continued on next page