Custom Search

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Kid Nation: Parental Responsibility

On August 18th we wrote about "Kid Nation" about a CBS show where children had control of a town and worked at running it themselves.

Parents of some of the children were complaining about the conditions on the set, injuries and there were threats of suing CBS.

We asked then where the parental responsibility was, sending their children off with strangers to another state to work and unlimited amounts of hours and I asked then:

New Mexico definitely has the right and responsibility to get answers from CBS about any laws that might have been broken, but do the parents have a valid issue?

Any of us that are parents will tell you that it is the parents responsibility to ensure their childrens safety. Other than knowing CBS as a television station, did the parents personally know the people they were turning their children over to as defacto guardians?

I see nothing in the NYT article showing what kind of contract or paperwork the parents signed and what was contained within.


In a chilling document reported and shown at The Smoking Gun, we get our answers about that contract and we also have our answer about who is to blame.

AUGUST 23--Parents of minors starring in "Kid Nation," the controversial new CBS reality show, signed away their rights to sue the network and the show's producers if their child died, was severely injured, or contracted a sexually transmitted disease during the program's taping. The blanket liability waivers are contained in a detailed "participant agreement" prepared by the show's producers and signed by parents. That document, a copy of which you'll find below, also gave consent to CBS and its production partners to make medical treatment decisions on the minor's behalf (including surgery), though the network made no promises about the "qualifications or credentials" of medical professionals that might treat the stars of "Kid Nation," which was originally titled "The Manhattan Project."


Go, read every page of that document and tell me if it is not infuriating that parents would sign their childrens life over to complete strangers.

The parents of any injured child should be brought up on neglect charges for endangering the lives of their children.

Sickening.



Store.HBO.com

.