September 27: Action for Children’s Television

Peggy Charren was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on this date in 1995 after three decades of activism designed to upgrade television for children. Charren founded Action for Children’s Television in 1968 (when she had young daughters), a not-for-profit organization that advocated for higher quality, more diverse television programming for kids, with less commercial brainwashing. (“Just get rid of it entirely,” Charren says of advertising aimed at kids.) Her efforts led to passage of the Children’s Television Act in 1990, which required broadcasters to include at least three hours of educational children’s content per week and to limit the amount of advertising found in children’s programming.

“If television were working, kids would want to go out and clean up the rivers, help the hungry and the homeless, and would know that peace is a good thing and nuclear war is the end of the world.”—Peggy Charren