TINSELTOWN PUT ON TRIAL ENTERTAINMENT, POLITICAL LEADERS DEBATE CONTENT.

Byline: David Bloom  Staff Writer

A star-studded panel of politicians and performers chewed on what one called the ``hot-button issue of the moment'' - media violence - minus the man who helped force the debate and whose presence on the Democratic ticket will give it new attention.

Vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman was supposed to be featured on a panel discussing violence in the media and its impact on children held Wednesday afternoon at the Central Library. But with his nomination speech scheduled just hours after the panel wrapped up, Lieberman had to bow out.

Ironically, former Education Secretary William Bennett, a Republican and longtime ally of Lieberman's on the Hollywood morality issues, spoke on his behalf. Bennett joked that he had ``Joe's power of attorney'' to talk about what Lieberman has called the ``revolt of the revolted,'' people upset by a raft of vulgar, violent and crude programming on television, in movies and elsewhere in entertainment.

``The result is an increasingly debased culture,'' Bennett said. ``There's a sense of a general lowering of culture. We'd also say there's an awful lot of good stuff. But this whole area of popular culture needs to be discussed.''

While ``people should make their art, what they call their art,'' Bennett said, ``we have First Amendment rights, too.''

Director Sydney Pollack said he didn't disagree with Bennett but ``it's naive to think in a free market that if you have an appetite (for violent, vulgar or sexual content), that it won't get filled.''

While Bennett opposed the v-chip, which is built into all new TV sets and allows parents to block programming with mature ratings, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said such technological fixes will be increasingly important as the options for viewing multiply in an era where the television, Internet and computers merge into one powerful programming box.

``Big Mother and Big Father in the living room need a way to program their TV/computer so their 5-year-old is not seeing things they don't want,'' Markey said. ``We have the technology, so what's wrong with giving parents the tools?''

Talk-show host Montel Williams, who avoids the sorts of tabloid topics that dominate many of his competitors' shows, said a v-chip isn't the answer.

``Youth violence is at the same level it was at 20 years ago,'' said Williams, who criticized the explicit news broadcasts of such sensational topics as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and the Rodney King beating.

``That was under the guise of news, of justifiable violence. But why do we have to worry about what's on TV when we have a button that says off-on? We don't need v-chips. We need 'p-chips' implanted in the back of parents' heads and making them reassert their responsibility.''

The audience included Bianca Jagger, Martha Plimpton, Harry Hamlin and ``Home Alone'' villain Daniel Stern, who teaches a media education class three weeks a year to high school students and who suggested to the panel that such programs be expanded to teach teens how to decode media violence and other problematic messages.

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3 photos

Photo:

(1) Talk show host Montel Williams offers his views on the media's influence on young Americans.

(2) Head of CBS programming Leslie Moonves, flanked by fellow entertainment industry figures Sydney Pollack, left, and Edward Markey, right, participates in a panel discussion on media responsibility Wednesday.

(3) Andrew Cuomo, left, Christie Brinkley, Peter Cook, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, William Baldwin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Crosby pose for a photo Wednesday outside the Los Angeles Central Library.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer