Senators Warn Industry To Monitor 'violent Fare'

Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., warned yesterday that unless the video game, movie, and music industries take steps to better ensure that violent adult fare is not marketed and sold to children and teenagers, they may ask the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department to investigate their marketing practices.

"The evidence we have strongly suggests that the Joe Camel has sadly not gone away, but has been adopted by the entertainment industry instead," Lieberman said yesterday at a Senate hearing focusing on the marketing of violence to children. Hatch said that he is also considering an enforcement mechanism for the current rating system of music, movies, and video games if he cannot gain voluntary support from industry leaders to upgrade enforcement.

The chief executives of BMG, Time Warner, Seagram, and Sony declined invitations to testify at the hearing, as did top executives of Viacom, Sega, Nintendo, and Hasbro.

RIAA president/CEO Hilary Rosen also did not attend. Rosen, who has accepted an invitation to attend an upcoming White House teen-violence summit, said that she would participate in other forums for real discussion of the teen-violence problem, but would not be willing to be political fodder.