The NW-ARM, started from three different directions. The first was the Spokane Academy for Family Television which was a local Chapter of the statewide Foundation for Family Television. The Foundation was developed in 1991 in response to a statewide survey by a University of Washington research team which found widespread dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger among Washington State's parents with the quality of television programming for their families. With the leadership of Jean Gardener, Washington's first lady and wife of then Governor Booth Gardner, a group of parents, community leaders, educators, and professionals concerned with children's issues formed this organization as a vehicle for taking constructive action in their local communities.

The second component of the NW-ARM grew out of Gonzaga University and the work of Professor John Caputo who was then Chair of the Communication Arts Department. Professor Caputo hosted several conferences looking at media and social values that included media theorist Dr. George Gerbner of the Annenberg School of Communication and Dr. Paul Soukup, S.J., of Santa Clara University. These conferences were community forums that examined the life of children growing up in a media culture.

The third component grew out of the West Central Community Center. The WC Community Center held a town hall forum to look at the root causes of violence in their neighborhood. One of root causes identified was violent content of media products. The West Central Community Center invited Dr. Caputo to talk about what the research on media says about influencing children. At the same time, Jan Foland, a Salk Middle School teacher in Spokane wrote an article in The Spokesman-Review describing her concerns about children and media and a petition she was starting to form a group of concerned citizens to monitor and counter the impact of violence in our media on the lives of our children. It was when these three groups came together that the Northwest Alliance for Responsible Television/Media was finally formed (now the Northwest Alliance for Responsible Media NW-ARM).

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