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{Denver Post ~ Sat., August 25, 2007}

Kid Nation has CBS on Defensive

By Joanne Ostrow,
Denver Post TV Critic

Kid Nation, debuting Sept. 19 on CBS, involves 40 children, average age 11, who were taken out of school for 40 days and left unsupervised in a New Mexico ghost town, trailed by film crews. Even before the show premieres, producers are facing allegations of child abuse and endangerment. (CBS)

CBS hopes its awful-sounding new reality show is television's most controversial social experiment yet.

It is potentially more grievous than the vicariously disgusting sight of people eating larvae on a dare, and even possibly worse than seeing 20-something housemates drinking, coupling and unraveling on the air. This one involves 40 children, average age 11, who were taken out of school for 40 days and left unsupervised in a ghost town, trailed by film crews.

Kid Nation debuts on CBS Sept. 19, but promotional clips are everywhere, along with outrage. Even before it begins, producers face allegations of child abuse and endangerment. Documents surfaced last week confirming that the producers were warned by the New Mexico attorney general's office during filming in April that they were in violation of child labor laws.

The oldest-skewing network is delighted to have this much buzz surrounding one of its programs.

"In order for a reality show to really get out there and change the landscape of television, you have to stir public debate," CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler told critics in Los Angeles last month. "We knew we were going to create some controversy."

"Go for it," CBS legal department.

Kid Nation, in which the kids live a "Lord of the Flies" scenario for the entertainment of a voyeuristic nation, marks the first time underage youths have been commercially exploited for unscripted "reality" television. Tears, fears and homesickness are captured up-close as the children struggle to self-govern and otherwise organize in a supposed ghost town (actually the remains of old movie sets in the desert outside Santa Fe), unregulated by grown-ups.

So far, one parent of a participant has written a letter of complaint to New Mexico officials, alleging the experience bordered on abuse and neglect. According to reports verified by CBS, four children required medical attention after accidentally drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, and one 11-year-old girl suffered a grease burn while cooking.

It is unclear whether the production violated state child labor laws in New Mexico. The show couldn't have been shot in other states where youth labor restrictions are tougher. New Mexico has since tightened a loophole that allowed the producers to work the kids 14 hours a day. For their part, the producers claim the kids weren't contracted to "work," in the legal sense.

Legalities aside, let's just say the act of taking 40 children out of school in April and May, to a state chosen for its lack of child-actor labor laws, then having those children work 14-hour days without adult supervision, violates basic assumptions about the proper care of children.

At a particularly hostile news conference last month, critics hammered producers with questions about the ethical and moral obligations involved in the recruitment of the kids.

The producers call it summer camp with TV cameras. Most critics call it the most disagreeable project on the fall schedules.

I ridicule the parents who let their young ones be exploited more than I blame a for-profit corporation eager to grab attention.

Initially I reserved judgment, wanting to screen the pilot before voicing an opinion. I wondered if the controversy was overblown, manufactured by CBS in order to make a mild, forgettable show sound more interesting than it actually is. Since the accusations of child endangerment surfaced, I'm less tentative.

Like Survivor and The Real World before it, Kid Nation may mark a new chapter in the evolution of intriguing unscripted TV -- a greedy new low.

Many of the "pioneer" kids, who ranged in age from 8 to 15, are labeled "gifted and talented" or high-achieving -- which supposedly gives them a leg up on starting an economy, cooking, cleaning and setting up a town council.

You can imagine a PBS version of this project, along the lines of Frontier House, with families and gifted kids making do without modern conveniences. Apparently that wouldn't be exciting or dangerous enough for commercial TV.

"Nobody is voted off Kid Nation, you only leave if you want to," the promo teases. And some did.

In addition to a $5,000 inducement per participant, a $20,000 prize is awarded by the town council in each episode.

The network figures there's no such thing as bad publicity. They're already casting the second season, hoping the thing turns into an ongoing franchise.

Creator-producer Tom Forman (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Armed and Famous) maintains there was "a large adult safety net" in place during production. He doesn't mean the phalanx of CBS lawyers who tweaked the definition of "work." Forman said pediatricians, child psychologists and an animal wrangler were standing by.

An ethicist would have been helpful, too.