CALLS GROW FOR CBS TO CANCEL KID NATION
Controversy over CBS’s Kid Nation continues to snowball, with two prominent entertainment columnists entering the fray today (Tuesday).
Barry Garron in The Hollywood Reporter urged CBS to cancel the show. “This has all gone far enough,” he wrote. “It’s time for CBS to cut its losses, apologize for an idea that was well-intentioned but ill-considered and pull Kid Nation from the schedule.”
Both Garron and Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke noted that the network seemed to go out of its way to avoid legal hassles, requiring parents to sign a 22-page contract, filming on closed sets in New Mexico, which has less restrictive laws than, say, California, and preventing parents of kids who participated in the series from speaking freely about it by threatening to enforce a non-disclosure clause.
Finke concluded her column by urging a Congressional investigation of “this latest TV scandal because it involves children.” On the other hand, Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “This show is challenging a social taboo that needs to be challenged … that kids need to be kids and need to be sheltered from life, which isn’t the case at all.”
I love reality shows, but I got a very bad feeling about this show, from the very beginning. It just seems so wrong.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I too love reality shows, but you’re right, this one is not good. Don’t see anything good coming from it and wonder the damage already caused to these kids. As a parent, how the heck do you let your child go into something like this?
August 28th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I’ve never even heard of it. What’s it about?
August 28th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
What an experience those kids would have. Teaches them how to deal with different challenges. I’m on the fence with this one. Better then sitting in front of a computer game and vegging out. That’s more cruel.