kid nation

AUGUSTA, Mich. (AP) ― For any kid who ever thought he or she could run things better than the grown-ups, the trial is beginning.

Nathan Gibes, a 12-year-old with local ties, tried his hand at creating a functional Neverland on the new CBS reality show, "Kid Nation." The program features 40 children left without supervision for 40 days in the derelict mining town of Bonanza, N.M.

Although the show sparked plenty of controversy, Gibes and his family said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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After howls of protest by parental psychologists and allegations that it was prime-time child abuse, Kid Nation premiered in the US last night, the new reality show in which 40 children are abandoned in a ghost town for 40 days without parental supervision.

The show had drawn heavy criticism for using child performers � some even accused the series of breaching child labour laws � with one mother claiming that her daughter suffered burns to her face and four other children treated for accidentally drinking bleach.

That was until last night, when television critics and Americans watched episode one for the first time.

If you discount the camera crews, producers, doctors, psychologists (all off camera) in this mocked-up pioneer ghost town in the New Mexico desert, there was hardly an adult in sight.

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The programme's creator, Tom Foreman, acknowledged last month that William Golding's Lord of the Flies was part of its creative inspiration. But on last night's evidence, Piggy would have had a ball in "Bonanza City". It was deeply controlled and sanitised.

The children, aged 8 to 15, are dropped in the desert and told to drag wagons filled with provisions to Bonanza City. It had one latrine.

After a competition to pump water (this is on day three, when the man in charge returns and suggests they divide into colour-coded teams, red, blue and green, bandannas provided), they are rewarded with a choice: seven more outhouses or a television. They choose the toilets. Cheers all round.

The community has been assigned four team leaders � the "town council" � who were told in secret that after the first week they must decide who should be awarded a $20,000 solid-gold star.

The winner at a communal meeting is Sophie, 14, who has single-handedly shown everyone else how to cook pasta and stop grumbling. She is given a special key to the one telephone in Bonanza City to phone her parents and break the news. They scream with delight.

The pumping competition has also divided the four teams into classes. The winners are "upper class", and don't have to do anything. Second place created a "merchant" team. They get to run the candy shop and dry-goods store. The third-place team became the town's cooks. Fourth were the labourers who had to clean the toilets. They were also paid the least. They seemed to take it with good grace but a washing-up war seemed to be brewing for episode two.

The most far-sighted child was the youngest, Jimmy, 8. He hated it from the start. He spotted Greg, the eldest at 15 � and therefore revered by most � as the nasty brute that he was. "Greg thinks he's cool but he isn't," Jimmy said on day one.
Kid Nation is a reality television show that began airing on the CBS network on September 19, 2007, filling the time slot of the serial drama Jericho. The show, featuring forty children aged 8 to 15, was shot at the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, a privately owned town built on the ruins of Bonanza City, New Mexico, eight miles south of Santa Fe.[1] In the show, the children try to create a functioning society in the town, including setting up a government system, with minimal adult help and supervision.[2][3] The program was originally scheduled to air in the summer of 2007.

The show stresses the difficulty in creating a viable society. The official CBS promo depicts children arguing with one another, crying, and falling over with exhaustion.[4] At the end of each episode, an elected council of kids awards the "Gold Star," worth $20,000, to a fellow participant. Participants were paid $5,000 for their involvement in the show's tapiInitial reception
Ahead of its premiere, the show proved to be the most controversial of the upcoming fall 2007 season, even though the only actual footage seen was a four-minute promo running on televison and the Web[6]. In previewing the series, CBS eschewed television critics, instead holding screenings at schools in at least seven large cities.[7] Variety columnist Brian Lowry wrote that "Kid Nation is only the latest program to use kids as fodder for fun and profit, which doesn't make the trend any less disturbing."[8] William Coleman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, argued that the younger children, ages 8 to 12, might not be able to deal with the stress, yet could be enticed to participate by the potential fame or be pressured to do so by a parent.[9]

Speaking before an audience of television reviewers, producer Tom Forman acknowledged that Kid Nation would inevitably share some elements with William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, which depicted planewrecked children without adult supervision. But adults were present off-camera during the Kid Nation production, including cameramen, producers, a medic, and a child psychologist, although all interacted with the children as little as possible. Participants also missed a month of school, but Forman suggested that such real-world tasks as preparing a group breakfast, doing hard physical chores like fetching water, and making group decisions constituted an educational experience in its own right. All participants were cleared by a team of psychologists, any child could elect to go home, and some did.[3] Robert Butterworth, a child psychologist in Los Angeles, wondered if comparable professional care was given after the production had wrapped.[9]

Some injuries occurred on the set. Four children needed medical attention after drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, a girl sprained her arm, becoming one of two children to visit a local emergency room, and an 11-year-old girl who was cooking burned her face with splattered grease.[10][11][1] That child's mother, Janis Miles, filed a complaint in June calling for an investigation into "abusive acts to minors and possible violations of child labor laws." The claim was investigated by Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, which found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the production company.[10] CBS said it stood by the procedures it had in place and its "response to all the minor injuries". The network rejected "irresponsible allegations or any attempts to misrepresent and exaggerate events or spread false claims about what happened."[12]

Los Angeles Times reporter Maria Elena Fernandez interviewed four of the children, who told her they "had to rough it without electricity or running water, sleep on bed rolls on the floor, cook their own meals, clean the town, run businesses, survive on three changes of clothes and set up their own hours and rules. Although three of them said they worked harder than they ever had in their lives, all four said the most challenging aspect was getting used to being filmed constantly." All four said they would happily do it again, although as Fernandez noted, "they haven't seen themselves on TV yet."[3]

The Kid Nation contract required parents to sign away a number of their children's rights. One notable thing was that consent was given to CBS and its production partners to make medical treatment decisions on the minor's behalf .[13]


[edit] Broader legal implications
The Kid Nation production has raised questions about whether reality show participants are more like subjects in a documentary or working actors. The latter are covered by union rules that govern everything from working hours to compensation.[14] This debate over participant status could be seen in an American Federation of Television and Radio Artists investigation over whether its AFTRA National Code of Fair Practices for Network Television Broadcasting was violated. The investigation went forward even though on reality shows, the Network Code generally covers professional performers, but not the participants.[12]

Kid Nation production took place before New Mexico tightened its regulations governing the number and span of hours a child actor can work. The producers had declared the set a summer camp rather than a place of employment, but that loophole has since been closed.[1] State officials and the producers have since openly disagreed as to whether New Mexico's labor laws were followed, and whether inspectors were given proper access to the set.[10] Some parents on hand for the final day of filming accused the producers of feeding children lines, re-casting dialog and repeating scenes, all of which suggested that the children functioned as actors. Producer Tom Forman said that the parents were observing routine "pickups" for scenes that might have been missed because of technical difficulties.[15]


[edit] "Kid Nation 2"
For a potential sequel, "Kid Nation 2", candidates are required to submit a written application and a three-minute video. Semi-finalists would then travel at their own expense to one of 10 regional interviews, with finalists flown to Los Angeles for the final selection.[2] Forman has acknowledged that a legal venue for a second season may be difficult to find.[9]


[edit] References
^ a b c "The Founding of 'Kid Nation'". TVWeek, retrieved August 3, 2007
^ a b Show Website
^ a b c "Is child exploitation legal in 'Kid Nation'?" by Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2007, retrieved August 17, 2007
^ CBS.com
^ Wyatt, Edward. "CBS Was Warned on 'Kid Nation,' Documents Show", New York Times, 2007-08-21. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
^ "Is CBS reality show 'Kid Nation' just child's play?" by Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2007, retrieved September 15, 2007
^ "CBS Screens 'Kid Nation' at Schools" by Edward Wyatt , New York Times, September 19, 2007, retrieved September 19, 2007
^ Article from Variety.com
^ a b c "'Kid Nation' Raises Controversy Ahead of Air", National Public Radio's Morning Edition, August 3, 2007
^ a b c "CBS addresses 'Kid Nation' controversies" by Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2007, retrieved August 22, 2007
^ Wyatt, Edward. "A CBS Reality Show Draws a Claim of Possible Child Abuse", New York Times, 2007-08-18. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
^ a b "'Kid Nation's' current reality: investigations" by Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2007, retrieved August 27, 2007
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff | September 20, 2007

No, that racket you heard last night from 8 to 9 was not a feud between the Lullaby League and the Lollypop Guild. It was the cast of "Kid Nation," 40 children between the ages of 8 and 15, bickering - and, in the case of at least two homesick lambs, crying - their little hearts out. Watching the CBS reality show, which premiered after months of anti-hype, was as much fun as baby-sitting overtired tots who've had one too many Sweet Tarts.

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts The controversies about "Kid Nation" include the alleged violation of child labor laws and accusations that the children - supposedly left to their own devices - were fed lines. And CBS has let the brouhaha sell the show, calling it "the most talked about series of the fall" in its ads. But even if you pushed those questions about production ethics out of your mind last night, the "Kid Nation" premiere was still an uncomfortable, irritating, and narratively subpar hour of TV. It was a disorganized mess that milked its young cast for cacophonous psychodrama.

There is just something grotesque and creepy about seeing children being deployed on reality TV, a genre that we all know thrives on conflict, tears, humiliation, and exhibitionism. Kiddie talent shows can be disturbing enough, but at least those tots practice their performances ahead of time. From the minute the "Kid Nation" cast arrived in the New Mexico ghost town of Bonanza City in the premiere, they were on national TV without a net, saying things they'll inevitably regret, things the show's producers and CBS can edit and refashion however they like.

Clearly, these kids are being edited into stereotypes - such as Greg, the oldest, who is probably going to be "the bully." Their tiny moments are going to be blown up into soundtracked drama, such as when one kid pulled a muscle, and their big moments are going to be ignored.

"Kid Nation" will in no way truly represent what children would do left to their own devices in a deserted town. There are cameramen and medical professionals on hand, of course, and also host Jonathan Karsh, who organizes the kids into a society with different class levels.

Karsh's presence is awkward, as he tries to sound both child-sensitive and stiffly competitive at once. "Any one of you can decide to give up and go home," he tells them, pointedly including the phrase "give up."

And how can we enjoy rooting for someone's downfall, or making fun of someone's shortcomings, when they're just a kid? The show puts viewers in a bad position. If the pleasure of reality TV is similar to that of a sports event, then "Kid Nation" is like going to a game with a muzzle on. When Jimmy decided to leave the show last night, for instance, who could raise an eyebrow, seeing as Jimmy is only 8 years old and all.

Despite the fact that it's all manufactured, the show still unfolded poorly. The kids blurred together, for the most part. And the producers failed to choose especially articulate children, generally speaking, so the confessional interviews weren't compelling. In fact, they were silly. Rather than analysis, the kids deliver flat lines to the camera such as "It's tough work but it has to be done" or "I personally think this is gross."

Hey wait, maybe that last line does have some merit.


^ "'Kid Nation' puts Hollywood labor tension into sharp focus", by Maria Elena Fernandez,Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2007, retrieved August 29, 2007
^ "Children's advocates join 'Kid Nation' fray", Maria Elena Fernandez,Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2007, retrieved September 3, 2007
ng.[5]


On day four the children were allowed to leave if they wanted. All stayed, except Jimmy. "I think I'm way to young for this," he said. He was wasn't. Just the most sensible.



"I thought it would be kinda like summer camp," Nathan said. "I've been away from my parents for a week before, so I thought a few more weeks wouldn't be any harder."

He attends the American Boychoir School in Princeton, N.J., and was a member of the Battle Creek Boychoir for several months before beginning filming in May.

His father, Kernon Gibes, began working at Kellogg Co. in January and his mother, Valerie Gibes, is in the process of moving their belongings from Illinois to Augusta, about seven miles west of Battle Creek.

The Gibeses caught wind of the show through an e-mail to a homeschool-parent list passed through a Chicago children's choir. Both Nathan and his parents thought it would be a good experience for him.

"I tried to emphasize to be friendly and make friends with everybody and be outgoing," Valerie Gibes said.

The kids, ages 8-15, were challenged to create their own town ― from cooking, cleaning and drawing their own water, to running their businesses and creating a government system.

So can kids stand up to the challenge? Nathan said they can and they did.

The show did have a few safety nets. Concerns over child labor-law violations and safety arose after one child reportedly was burned while cooking and several accidentally drank bleach. According to CBS, they were treated immediately and a full medical staff was onsite at all times.

Valerie Gibes said she wasn't concerned with safety issues but instead by the fact she couldn't talk to her son for 40 days.

"They would call every three days to say he was fine," she said. "I was just annoyed I didn't have the details."

The experience made Nathan physically stronger and slightly changed his ideas on politics, but overall, he said, he now knows most kids have what it takes to get the job done.

"It depends on the kids," he said. "But I think it's possible