Kid Nation

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. 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. 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. 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 taping.

Episodes

Episode Title	Air Date	Upper-Class	Merchants	Cooks	Laborers	Gold Star recipient	Exits
I'm Trying to Be a Leader Here	September 19, 2007	Red District	Blue District	Yellow District	Green District	Sophia	Jimmy

Controversy

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. In previewing the series, CBS eschewed television critics, instead holding screenings at schools in at least seven large cities. 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." 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.

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 shipwrecked 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. Robert Butterworth, a child psychologist in Los Angeles, wondered if comparable professional care was given after the production had wrapped.

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. 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. 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."

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 notes, "they haven't seen themselves on TV yet."

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 .

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

"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. Forman has acknowledged that a legal venue for a second season may be difficult to find.

External links

• Official page at cbs.com
• Unofficial Kid Nation Blog
• Kid Nation participant contract per The Smoking Gun
• Kid Nation episodes
• "Kid Nation" satire on U.S. public radio program "Marketplace"