Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / April 2004

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/8547401.htm?1c

Adoption contest may be new reality-TV low

By Mike Cassidy

Mercury News

ABC's 20/20 plans to air a contest Friday among five couples.

First prize: A real, live baby to adopt.

What's that? You say the program and host Barbara Walters have gone too far
this time? What do you know about television?

ABC knows a winner when it sees it and this is Nielsen gold, my friend. A
reality show with a human life on the line -- all disguised as news
programming.

Let the other shows have half-naked people betraying each other on a deserted
island. Give them the half-naked people eating buckets of bug eyes. And the
half-naked people putting up with Donald Trump. And the half-naked people
trying to get other half-naked people to marry them.

ABC has got real reality.

A real baby and a real teen mother. And there's more. Five couples desperate
for a child. So desperate they'll go on national television to get one -- one
who might forever hate them for what they put him through.

This is love, despair, heartbreak, joy, guilt. This is Shakespeare
news-magazine style.

You want to see people who are worse off than you are? This is the show for
you.

You may have heard about the ``20/20'' show scheduled for Friday.

It will feature a segment called ``Be My Baby.'' The cameras will follow an
Ohio teenager as she decides which among five couples will be allowed to adopt
her newborn baby.

The novel idea has caused a bit of a stir. Adoption advocates are screaming.
And then there are those in favor of common decency. They're all bent out of
shape.

The adoption people and the decent people have been writing away on Web sites
and complaining on talk radio. The New York Times quoted a New Jersey mother
who said the idea was ``completely appalling.''

Which, you see, is exactly the point. Appalling makes great TV.

This is TV 2004. Nothing is out of bounds. In fact, there are no bounds.

John Stossel -- he's Walters' sidekick -- now he gets it.

``Barbara is going to bring you what might be called the ultimate reality
show,'' is the way Stossel pitched the program last week. ``As you watch, a
pregnant teenager will decide which of the five couples gets her baby.''

And Barbara gets it. Although she has an adopted daughter, so you know, you
can't really criticize her. But she gets it.

She entices viewers with a tease about ``a nerve-racking elimination round.''

Cool. Does America get to vote? (Call now. 1-800-HOW-SICK.)

The network and Walters have backed off the hype, given the uproar. But the
controversy already has been stoked and viewers' interest has been piqued. Yes,
on the surface it seems ABC is going to a tasteless extreme, what with the May
sweeps coming. But really, producers at the network lack creativity.

I mean, you want a reality show? Why not see which couple can last the longest
in a vat of baby vomit? Or I know, let's see which couple can eat the most jars
of strained peas. Or how about a competition making formula in the middle of
the night -- try three times, every night?

Or maybe the couple that can sit through an interview with Walters without
tearing up should get the baby.

No, wait. I've got it.

How about we have all the adults participating in this atrocity watch it over
and over again. The one who can still live with himself or herself when it's
over gets the baby.

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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown