Are The 'Kids' Alright?

I first learned about it after I received an email asking if I could go on MSNBC to talk about the show. We put up an article up on our website about the NY Times article. Team legal requested we get a statement from CBS. Minutes later we got the statement, which we realized had obviously already been requested by others. Normally, it takes much longer to get a response. The carefully worded statement called the NY Times article "incomplete, misleading and a patently unfair portrayal of ‘Kid Nation’." A war of words was on and the controversy spiraled out of control from there.

I haven't seen an entire episode in full, as screeners have not yet been provided to the media, so I can't weigh in on what I actually think of the show. What I think of the story is a different, well, story. The kids are all right. It sounds to me like this is a whole lot of people overreacting because kids were involved.

I spoke to the Executive Producer of “Kid Nation,” Tom Forman, yesterday. For the record, he and I used to work at CBS together over a decade ago. Back then I knew him to be a passionate, ambitious, hard working guy. When I talked to him yesterday I found the same exact guy. It's my job to push the envelope and go after the salacious details, whether or not I believe the story, and he handled it well. I have to say what I saw was someone who was deeply hurt by all the negativity. I told him, "I can see in your eyes how much you love this show and how it must be so frustrating to you, everything that's going on right now." He responded, "I love the show and I love these kids who I really think accomplished something incredible. I think this conversation takes away from what they did. They're independent kids who wanted the chance to be on their own, who wanted to prove something to adults and I think they did that. I think you know nobody would be more upset to hear people think these kids were exploited than the kids themselves."

Having said that, I didn't let him off the hook that easy. I truly believe from years of experience that reality shows are overly manipulated, most of the time, in order to help create drama, fun, silliness or whatever experience will help in the ratings. This notion did not sit well with Forman who told me, "I disagree. I mean we took 40 incredible kids and maybe, it is just that you underestimate kids, but we took 40 incredible opinionated kids and let them express these opinions sometimes for the first times in their lives, let them do things they had never done before and they rose to the challenge. And it's compelling and it's interesting and, and what they do out there is remarkable and we didn't have to manufacture any of it. I don't know quite what you're suggesting."

I was suggesting that history shows that reality typically doesn't mean real. Past reality show contestants go on the record all the time about how situations were manipulated or conversations were taken out of context to help move a story along. I don't underestimate that kids are interesting, I underestimate that reality show producers don't all have an agenda.

This morning I watched an interview Billy Bush did with one of the parents whose daughter, Sophia, participated in the show. She was frustrated that many media outlets are not using all the positive comments the parents and kids have made, only focusing on the negative. She had glowing reviews of it and said her daughter loved the experience. Some producers around here brought up the fact that she and Forman were definitely coached by CBS, giving similar responses to questions about labor violations, contracts and accidents on set. I say, so what. Those were legal issues. I don't blame CBS for providing them wording on this. However, you can’t sway opinion. You can't make someone say they liked something if they didn't.

After hearing all the facts and details from Tom about how the show was filmed, I believe CBS didn't do anything wrong. What matters here is whether or not these kids enjoyed the experience, an experience they made the choice to join. They had the right to choose whether or not they wanted to leave or not. Some of them did for reasons like homesickness. It sounds to me like most of them stayed and had an amazing, fun, sometimes challenging time.

You can bet all this controversy will have lots of people tuning in for "Kid Nation's" September 19th premiere on CBS. I could use a good bit of publicity myself. So, if anyone wants to stir up controversy for the Dish of Salt be my guest!