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Kids' Reality Show 'Borders on Abuse'

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Kogs:
i love it, hope theres more story's coming out about this piece of crap


--- Quote ---(Aug. 18) - The ads promoting "Kid Nation," a new reality show coming to CBS next month, extol the incredible experience of a group of 40 children, ages 8 to 15, who built a sort of idealistic society in a New Mexico ghost town, free of adults. For 40 days the children cooked their own meals, cleaned their own outhouses, formed a government and ran their own businesses, all without adult intervention or participation.

To at least one parent of a participant, who wrote a letter of complaint to New Mexico state officials after the show had completed production, the experience bordered on abuse and neglect. Several children required medical attention after drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, according to both the parent and CBS. One 11-year-old girl burned her face with splattered grease while cooking.

The children were made to haul wagons loaded with supplies for more than a mile through the New Mexico countryside, and they worked long hours -- "from the crack of dawn when the rooster started crowing" until at least 9:30 p.m., according to Taylor, a 10-year-old from Sylvester, Ga., who was made available by CBS to respond to questions about conditions on the set.

Taylor and her mother, and another participant and his mother, all spoke enthusiastically about the show and said they believed the conditions on the set were adequate. But Divad, an 11-year-old girl from Fayetteville, Ga., whose mother wrote the letter of complaint and who was burned with hot grease while cooking, said she would not repeat the experience. She said there was no adult supervision of the cooking operation when she was hurt, although there often was an adult "chef" present in the kitchen.

Her mother, Janis Miles, declined to speak to a reporter.

A New Mexico official whose department oversees licensing of congregant child-care settings said in an interview that the project almost assuredly violated state laws requiring facilities that house children be reviewed and licensed.

The official, Romaine Serna, public information officer for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, said Friday that CBS had never contacted the agency. If the department had known of the parent's allegations when the incidents occurred, she said, "We would have responded and would have assured the children's safety."

CBS officials say they broke no laws. "We feel very comfortable that this was appropriate from a legal point of view," Ghen Maynard, the executive vice president for alternative programming at CBS, said in an interview Friday.

Jonathan Anschell, who oversees CBS's West Coast legal office, said that a state labor department inspector visited the set of the show unannounced during the production. But Carlos Castaneda, a spokesman for the state labor department, now known as the Department of Workforce Solutions, said that the inspector was not allowed on the site and left without inspecting anything.

Mr. Anschell said that after the visit from the labor department inspector, the network contacted the attorney general's office about its program but was never advised that it was not in compliance with the law.

The question of how CBS accomplished the feat of taking 40 young children into the New Mexico desert for nearly six weeks during the middle of the school year, allowing them almost no contact with their parents, in order to produce a television show has attracted attention. The network has heavily promoted "Kid Nation," which executives are hoping will be one of its breakout hits this fall.

Almost from the time CBS announced the concept in May, doubts have grown about whether its actions skirted state or federal laws regarding child welfare and child labor. The show's executive producer defended the project in a heated session with television writers in Beverly Hills last month, but the previously undisclosed allegations of neglect raise questions about how the experience was structured.

It also raises questions about the still-growing genre of reality shows, or unscripted programming as it is known in Hollywood.

As reality producers have been forced to reach further to invent something new or exciting, many shows have apparently left reality behind. The Discovery Channel last month said it would re-edit some episodes of "Man vs. Wild" after a British television network reported that the show's star, adventurer Bear Grylls, was staying in a hotel on some nights when the show depicted him sleeping in the wild.

The Oxygen cable network heavily promoted a reality show that featured the actress Tori Spelling investing her inheritance from her television producer father, Aaron Spelling, in a bed and breakfast that she was to run with her husband, only to have it later revealed that she never actually bought the property. A lawsuit filed in New York last month charged Gordon Ramsey, star of the upcoming reality show "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares," with faking scenes, including hiring actors to pose as customers. The parties were ordered to go to arbitration by a Manhattan judge.

Until "Kid Nation," no reality show had focused on taking a group of children from their homes and placing them in unknown situations, forced to deal with whatever arises and recording the results.

Just days after the shooting of "Kid Nation" ended, an anonymous letter was sent to the New Mexico governor's office, the attorney general's office and the sheriff of Santa Fe County, spelling out the bleach-drinking incident and other potentially harmful circumstances. That was followed three weeks later by a letter from Ms. Miles, the parent of Divad, that detailed many of the same incidents and injuries.

The program, which is scheduled to have its premiere on Sept. 19, was produced on the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, located on several thousand acres about eight miles south of Santa Fe. The ranch contains several dozen buildings in various locations, most of which were built for the filming and production of movies like "Into the West" and "Silverado."

Tom Forman, the executive producer of the show, told television writers last month at the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour that New Mexico had been chosen because Bonanza Creek offered a unique setting. New Mexico also had no specific regulations concerning the use of child actors in television and film production, which many states, including California and New York, do have.

Though the children spent six weeks away from school in April and May, no tutors were present on the set. Though many states limit the number of hours children can work a day on television productions, Mr. Forman said the children set their own hours.

Ms. Miles's letter, which requested an investigation into issues of child abuse, neglect and endangerment, was sent to her local sheriff's office, which forwarded it to the sheriff's office in Santa Fe County. Greg Solano, the Santa Fe sheriff, said he had investigated the allegations but found no criminal activity. He sent the letter along to civil authorities.

Ms. Serna's office was among those that received the information, but by that time the production was already packed up and gone from New Mexico. "This type of setting, with 40 kids away from their parents for an extended time, would have required some notice and work prior to actually bringing the children into the state," she said.

Mr. Anschell of CBS disputed that, saying that the network's correspondence with the attorney general's office produced nothing except a warning that as of June 15, state law had been changed to limit the number of hours that children can be on the set of a television production.

Mr. Anschell also said that state labor laws did not apply. "The children were not employed under the legal definition," he said. "They were not receiving set wages for performing specific tasks or working specific hours."

But the parents were told before the children left to go to the set that they would receive a $5,000 stipend for their participation. The children also had the opportunity to earn a gold star that was given at the end of each episode -- or roughly every three days of filming -- that at the end of the session could be turned in for a $20,000 check. In addition, the children were assigned tasks and were paid for those with buffalo nickels, which they could then use to buy items at a dry-goods store or a candy shop or to buy drinks at a root beer saloon.

Nevertheless, Mr. Anschell said, "those were not wages and did not create an employee relationship."

The children's definition of work is somewhat different. "Everyone usually had a job," said Mike, an 11-year-old from Bellevue, Wash., who participated in the show. Among them were cooking, cleaning, hauling water and running the stores, where, he said: "It was hard work, but it was really good. It taught us all that life is not all play and no work."

Taylor, from Georgia, agreed. "I learned I have to work for what I want," she said
--- End quote ---

Kogs:
my wish has come true  :lol:


--- Quote ---CBS Was Warned on ‘Kid Nation,’ Documents Show
         
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: August 22, 2007
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21 — The producers of a CBS reality show featuring 40 children living on their own in the New Mexico desert were warned by the state attorney general's office while the show was being taped last spring that they might be violating the state's child-labor laws, according to interviews with state officials and documents obtained Tuesday under the state's open records act.

The show, "Kid Nation," which is scheduled to premiere on CBS on Sept. 19, is a reality show whose premise is to take 40 children, ages 8 to 15, and place them in a "ghost town" in New Mexico to see if they can build a working society without the help of adults.

But after the production ended in mid-May, the parent of one child in the production complained to state officials that the children's treatment bordered on abuse. Four children received medical treatment for accidentally drinking bleach, one child was burned on her face with hot grease while cooking in an unsupervised kitchen, and most of the children were required to work 14 hours or longer per day. They received a payment of $5,000 for their participation.

In interviews last week, CBS contended the children were not employees because they were not performing specific work for specific wages. A lawyer for CBS, Jonathan Anschell, said the network had received no indication that it was violating the law.

But on May 1, two weeks after a state labor inspector was turned away from the site, Andrea R. Buzzard, a New Mexico assistant attorney general, warned in a letter to lawyers for the production that the state did not agree with the network's interpretation of state labor law.

"We are not certain that those laws are limited to traditional 'employment' relationships," Ms. Buzzard wrote, citing part of the state child-labor statutes that say that a child's frequent presence at a work site "shall be prima facie evidence that such child is unlawfully engaged in labor."

New Mexico frequently issues exemptions to its child-labor statutes to Boy Scout camps, Boys and Girls Clubs and similar groups to allow minor members of those groups to participate what would otherwise be considered work, Carlos Castaneda, a spokesman for the state labor department, now known as the Department of Workforce Solutions, said Tuesday.

Mr. Castaneda said the producers of "Kid Nation" should have followed a special permit process. "We have requests for these permits every summer, to waive the child labor laws and minimum wage rights for camps," he said. "We were not trying to put obstacles in front of the production. We wanted to provide for the safety of children."

CBS officials had used the "camp" designation to characterize the reality show in discussions with parents, Ghen Maynard, the executive vice president in charge of CBS's reality programming division, said last week. CBS spokesmen did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the attorney general's letters.

Mr. Castaneda said that CBS and Good TV Inc., the production company behind the show, neither applied for nor were issued such an exemption during the six weeks they spent working on the show. The program took place on the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, eight miles south of Santa Fe.

An official with the New Mexico state department that oversees group homes for children said last week that the production appeared to violate state laws requiring residential units like the one housing the show's participants to be licensed.

When a state labor inspector, Abe Tapia, visited the ranch on April 13, to see if the production had work permits for the children, he was told to wait in a production crew dining area for a producer. After waiting for about an hour, Mr. Tapia was told that the show's executive producer, Tom Forman, would not be available that day.

Mr. Tapia returned to the site the following day and on April 16, but was stopped at the front gate and not allowed onto the property.

The visits were prompted by an anonymous phone call reporting on the activity involving children on the ranch, Mr. Castaneda said. After Mr. Tapia's visit, a New Mexico lawyer representing CBS and Good TV wrote to the state attorney general's office explaining the production, Mr. Anschell said last week.

"No one from that office, despite a detailed description of what we were doing, ever raised an issue whether licensing was required," Mr. Anschell said.

But the letter from the attorney general's office indicates otherwise. In addition to pointing out that the definition of work in the state's labor laws appeared to be broader than CBS was saying, Ms. Buzzard, the assistant attorney general, requested a copy of the network's agreements with the child actors.

After receiving the agreement, the attorney general's office again wrote to the production's representatives, on May 24. But by that time, the CBS show had packed up and left the state, and the state officials said the applicability of the state law was moot. But they pointed out that a new state law would soon go into effect specifically limiting the amount of time that children can work each day on television productions
--- End quote ---
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kevinfromduluth:
CBS is in deep trouble ....
1. News with Katie is tanking..
2. Possible criminal and legal action over Kid Nation...
3. Already lost a boat load of Cash to Don Imus over stupid firing...
4. Overall ratings are down, not to mention loss of Key cast members on there shows...
5. Doubts continue over reality shows being real or staged after revelations about Survivor restaging games.

Network is so worried about ratings...they're driving the Car over the cliff..... :lol: :lol:

TexasLady:
Add Pirate Master to the sinking ship at CBS.  :pirates1 :pirate9

I don't intend to watch Kid's Nation, it seemed criminal to me when I saw the ads for it, not to mention it has BS written all over it... SEE KIDS can have a perfect civilization, if only we were as smart as the children!  B:)

Kogs:
heres more to add to the fire, they should just cut there losses and cancell this damm thing already


--- Quote ---New Mexico attorney general looking into possible 'Kid Nation' violations

A New Mexico official wants to know whether producers lawfully avoided obtaining work permits for children, and shut out inspection.
By Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 24, 2007
The firestorm surrounding CBS' forthcoming "Kid Nation" picked up heat on Thursday when the New Mexico Attorney General's Office confirmed it was launching an investigation into whether state laws were broken during the production, and child activists called for individual states to investigate whether the families violated truancy laws.

"Kid Nation," scheduled to premiere Sept. 19, takes reality television into another realm by placing 40 kids, ages to 8 to 15, in the desert near Santa Fe for 40 days to build a society without any contact with their parents. Although a CBS spokesman said the network acquired a proper film permit to film on the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, Atty. Gen. Gary King is examining whether the network and producers lawfully avoided applying for work permits for the children.

"Information is being evaluated now and reviewed in light of all the interest in this," spokesman Phil Sisneros said. "We are determining what our next move will be or even if there will be one. Even though it seems it's kind of a moot point, there are a lot of things to look into that we could still address."

Among the issues the attorney general will review will be the production's permit process, the 22-page contract between parents and the producers, and whether the production company illegally refused to allow inspectors onto the property for routine inspections.

Sisneros said the attorney general's office learned of the production, which ran from April 1 to May 10, when an inspector from the Department of Workforce Solutions notified officials that he was not allowed on the property to inspect work permits. Soon after, the attorney general's office received correspondence from CBS lawyers explaining the children are not "employees" and therefore did not need work permits. Creator Tom Forman said he leased the privately owned Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch site for production.

The inspector's and CBS lawyers' versions of the events differ in that Jonathan Anschell, executive vice president and general counsel for CBS Corp., says the inspector was allowed to the area where producers work and chose not to stay when Forman was not available. A CBS spokesman on Thursday said the network "has nothing to add."

Asked how a TV production company could refuse to let a government worker do his job, Sisneros said: "They pretty much can do anything they want at the site. Obviously, they did. Whether or not what they did is legal is another question."

"I'm thrilled that they would be launching an investigation," said Anne Henry, co-founder of BizParentz, a nonprofit organization that assists child actors and their families. "I would also hope that the individual states where the kids are from also would also look into truancy issues for each of those children."

Because no tutors were on location, as is customary when children are hired for TV shows or movies, parents had to arrange with their children's schools to make up missed work, Forman said.

Of the four children interviewed by The Times, a 15-year-old boy from Reno is home-schooled; a 10-year-old boy from Miami Beach said he had to make up all the work; a 12-year-old from Pearland, Texas, said he took homework to the location and made up the rest of the work; and a 12-year-old girl from Boston said she missed 19 days of school and had "to un-enroll from school and then re-enroll, so I didn't have to make up any work, which was awesome."

"That's illegal," Henry said. "The rules vary in each state and each district so the rules for each child are going to be different, but in no state in this country is it legal for a parent to remove their child from school for a lengthy period of time just because they want to."

She continued: "We don't want to see one production break every rule in the book, whether it's a real law or an industry standard, and see them get away with it because we know it's a slippery slope and our kids will be hurt in the end."
--- End quote ---

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