Walt Disney (DIS) CEO Robert Iger wrote a letter to University of Washington President Mark Emmert about a news release under the title "Baby DVDs, videos may hinder, not help, infants' language development," demanding the University retract its statements.
"For the University to issue a press release making reckless charges warning parents to avoid using Baby Einstein products ... is completely irresponsible," Iger said in the letter. Baby Einstein is a Disney subsidiary.
In a direct phone conversation with Emmert, Iger asked him to check out the news release and study to see if the assertions in the press release were consistent with the findings of the study.
That of course is a potential risk by Iger in that if after the confirmation one way or the other, if the information of the study is accurately represented, then it will further harm their product, probably more than it already has.
This isn't the first time a study has asserted this, as I talked about a Cornell University study that was far from conclusive, which attempted to tie watching TV by youngsters to autism.
This particular study claimed that "watching such videos often may slow down vocabulary acquisition for some infants." From there the study stated "parents who want to give their infants a boost in learning language probably should limit the amount of time they expose their children to DVDs and videos such as 'Baby Einstein' and 'Brainy Baby.'"
The problem here is the "weasel" words the study uses. Words like "often may" said above, or "some infants." How can something "often may" slow down vocabulary learning? The it adds the other "weasel" words "some infants."
To make the assertion people should stop using certain DVDs and videos based on that shaky language is irresponsible.
I'm not a big fan of young children watching TV, so I'm not coming from that angle, what I'm saying is the language in the press release is ambiguous and weak. If they were that certain they should have made their case strongly, not weakly make comments that they can get out of later if it is discovered they are wrong or twisted the meaning because they want to believe it, rather than base their assertions on real facts.
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