CBS - CALLS GROW FOR CBS TO CANCEL KID NATION

CALLS GROW FOR CBS TO CANCEL KID NATION

Controversy over CBS's Kid Nation continues to snowball, with two prominent entertainment columnists entering the fray today (Tuesday). Barry Garron in The Hollywood Reporter urged CBS to cancel the show. "This has all gone far enough," he wrote. "It's time for CBS to cut its losses, apologize for an idea that was well-intentioned but ill-considered and pull Kid Nation from the schedule." Both Garron and Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke noted that the network seemed to go out of its way to avoid legal hassles, requiring parents to sign a 22-page contract, filming on closed sets in New Mexico, which has less restrictive laws than, say, California, and preventing parents of kids who participated in the series from speaking freely about it by threatening to enforce a non-disclosure clause. Finke concluded her column by urging a Congressional investigation of "this latest TV scandal because it involves children." On the other hand, Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, told Britain's Guardian newspaper, "This show is challenging a social taboo that needs to be challenged ... that kids need to be kids and need to be sheltered from life, which isn't the case at all."

28/08/2007