Rumors are running around Jon may let TLC film the kids again. While we remain highly suspicious of these rumors and highly suspect they may have been planted by TLC to see what the reaction is, nonetheless for purposes of this post we will assume the worst and assume Jon really is toying with this. And we plead with Jon not to allow his children to be filmed again. Among the many reasons why, here are just a few:1. The children deserve a normal, private childhood. What has filming the first five years of their lives done from them? Name one thing. Their parents are divorced and hate each other, their mother's priorities are hair extensions, nails, and a TV career away from them, their father's priorities are 25-year-old bimbos and snowboarding trips, and they've been on a bunch of vacations they can't even remember. The paparazzi jump out at them at the bus stop and grocery store. They are still recovering and trying to get back to normal, please don't start all over again.
2. The children were never properly paid for their past work and we don't trust for a second they will be properly paid for any future work.
3. The children by all accounts had to work long hours and travel a lot for filming. They are older now and have more school activities, sports, music, friends and other commitments they should be focused on.
4. Their parents are hardly even speaking. Filming again and having to make all kinds of decisions again with TLC will probably cause more fighting, heartache and grief. Perhaps they will even have to drag each other back to court.
5. Filming again will only remind them of how things used to be--their old lives when their parents were together. Let them move on from that in peace.
6. Filming again will introduce another round of strangers in and out of their lives, which is without question unhealthy.
7. TLC will just screw them over again in the end. You honestly think they won't? They are a money-making business, not your friend.
9 sediments (sic) from readers:
All good points. I wonder what Aunt Jodi thinks? They were so supportive of Jon when he ended the filming, and seemed to be friendly with him again. I hope they are encouraging him to stay the course. Where are his mom, his siblings? Are things that bad financially that he would consider letting TLC and Kate take over his children again?
Jeez remember him on LK. Live saying over and over again, 'filming is not healthy for my kids' - what happened to that Jon?
I don't think Jon ever protected the kids.
Your best reason is...The paparazzi jump out at them at the bus stop and grocery store.
That pic makes me so sad. I never realized before just how up close and personal the cameramen are with the kids. They are right in the middle of them playing when they filmed. That is not "normal".
Very Good.
Cannot agree more.
Can you imagine all the kid things the Gosselin will miss out on because they have to adhere to a strict contract?
There is no good reason to film the Gosselin children ever again. NONE.
50 Reasons Jon,Kate & TLC eat my Monkey Munch.
1. Children are not a commodity to be sold for a contract to the sleaziest channel.
2. TLC made money off the Gosselin children & when their family imploded TLC exploited it for their gain.
3. Kate & Jon wanted celebrity from Hellloooo. It was never about saving memories, providing, or having a paid off home for the kids.
4. Kate has never mothered her children. She has delegated her duties to countless people & when they do it better than her they disappear.
5. Kate is the epitome of "It is all about me"
6. Jon never had the drive to be an adult much less a father.
7. TLC has no show for Kate just alot of expenses dwindling their profits.
8. TLC cannot do anything since the implosion of this story except feed sleazy tabloids. What a high road taker they are. How much they have helped in the tender loving care they were going to show this situation.
9. Jon isn't gonna make moon pie's in a moon pie factory.
10. Kate couldn't say a nice thing to someone if her next botox injection depended on it.
11. The kids will be the only ones who truly suffer in this situation.
12. Kate kool aiders are aiding and abetting the biggest mean mom since Mommy Dearest.
13. Nothing Kate, TLC or Jon says is the truth. Even they have watched the 100+ episodes so much they believe their own scripts.
14. Figure 8 productions places priority on Dogs. But, not the Gosselin dogs. They were just a prop to be disposed of after puppy love was over.
15. Kate's idea of a relationship is like a disposable paper plate after it is used throw it away.
16. Jon's idea of a commitment is highschool. Wow, he is still stuck there in Senior year!
17. TLC's idea a show for Kate is a puppet show. And, man the woman plays the puppet on the string to a hilt.
18. Kate's idea of a high road is the same as saying the National Enquirer was put on this earth to report the weather.
19. The View Ladies just want ratings so they allow Kate to come on to be the butt of the show.
20. No one will step up on behalf of the Gosselin children because TLC & Kate must have them convinced that the children will not get their next paper plate of carrots & ranch dip without a show.
21. Jon will not fight TLC because he doesn't know the difference between a contract & a contract.
22. Kate will not be able to leave home without the bodyguard because "He's hers all hers" Never intended to protect the kids.
23 Kate thinks it is all about her.
24. TLC thinks they will be able to fool another group of viewers.
25. Kate thinks the way you take care of your kids is by going to the tanning bed.
26. Jon thinks he is going to escape Kate by not being married to her.
27. Jon & Kate think their celebrity will buy them everything.
28. Kate thinks her hair will get her a job on the new Reality show.
29. Jon & Kate both think the money will never stop coming in.
30. Jon & Kate both think the other is with the kids more. Helloo...The staff is with the kids more.
31. TLC thinks they can use children like advertisers use product placement.
32. Kate thinks she is Kate clean slate
33. Kate makes a monster look like Cinderella at the ball.
34. Tlc makes contracts look like San Quentin is a luxury vacation.
35. The Gosselins wanted to model to their children that life is about scamming people.
36. The Gosselins give christianity a bad wrap.
37. TLC makes promises but doesn't take care of their brand.
38. 20 years from now Kate & Jon will not have a thing to show for what they did to their children except 100+ episodes of how not to treat your family.
39. The real losers here are Jon, Kate and TLC.
40. The kids will never care that they did not get to go to the Statue of Liberty but they will always mourn the normal childhood they never got to have.
41. When it is all said & done and the kids are raised, Kate will still be remembered as "Mommy dearest"
42. When I take my son to Disneyworld this next week I will make sure he gets ruined just for the Gosselin of it.
43. The next time I see a wooden spoon I will put Kate's picture on it and karate chop it.
44. If someone asks me why Jon decided to date Kate. I will say I think he should not have dumped his 1st girlfriend for Kate. He should have ran for the hills.
45. TLC is the lying channel & much worse.
46. Kate will not succeed in show business but one thing is for sure. I will be more than glad to give her free publicity while she tries.
47. The Gosselin children should be able to go to the bus without their mom dressing like a Brat Doll ready to work the mall strip.
48. Everyone has a dream. Kate doesn't care who she ruins to achieve it. But, ice cream on a 3 year old's shirt is an absolute no no.
49. Kate cannot raise her children without being a celebrity. How come the millions of other people in this world do?
50. Finally, there is nothing more precious & short in life than a childhood. Tlc, Kate nor Jon care about that. It is all about them. And, that my fellow zloggers pisses the monkey munch out of me.
Good points, Admin. and Irene.
The kids deserve some privacy--haven't they given up enough over the last few years? TLC/Discovery is a business--all they care about is money--why would you basically sign your children's lives away to a corporation? There are no laws protecting the Gosselin kids--they are not even part of a union, like SAG. No laws governing working condtions, safety, amounts of money to be put in trust, number of hours allowed to be filmed--nothing, zip, nada.
All so that Kate and Jon could live the "glamorous life." Don't tell me it was to provide a "better" life for the kids. Because it seems like its never enough for Jon and Kate--they want more--they were not content to live in a nice suburban neighborhood in a very respectable house--oh, no. They needed a mini-estate with a 6500 sq. foot house, 26 acres, and a stable;spa treatments, first-class trips and accommodations, etc. Yeah, kids really care about all that. The tups won't even remember half of the trips they've taken --and kids really don't care about a bigger home--they wind up all playing together, anyway.
Another thing mentioned above that concerns me is that filming will prevent the children from doing normal activities--"No Cara, you can't be on the soccer team because it conflicts with our production schedule," or, "No Mady, you can't go to Emily's birthday sleepover because we're filming those days and emily's parents won't allow the party to be filmed," etc.
The Butler Report
Children on 'Reality' TV Shows -
The gloves come off
The gloves are off in the arena of the use of children in ‘reality’ TV shows. The Learning Channel (TLC) has been under pressure about their use of minors in these shows for some time. There is increasing viewer concern about the perception that the children are being exploited. And in the opinion of many, they are. Advocacy groups have made repeated appeals that the use of children on these shows be reviewed due to the lack of regulation.
Ethical and moral issues aside what it comes down to is this. Reality show kids are not regarded by TLC, for the most part, as child actors. They are treated as 'participants' as they would if they were part of a documentary. As such they fall outside of child actor regulations and guidelines and do not get paid. Their parents however, do.
There are exceptions. If, like Octomom, the children live in California (or New York), they are subject to the states child labor laws which ensure that that the children are indeed designated as actors. As a result they receive payment, are protected by law, have oversight to ensure that they work safely and within confines that avoid exploitation or abuse.
On the show Jon & Kate plus 8 however, while the parents receive a reported $1.5 million each per season, the children don’t receive a dime. One would think that based on equitable distribution they – each member of the family - should each receive one tenth (the number of people in the house hold is ten) of the gross fee, which would be $300,000 per child and adult per season - $3 million divided by 10. Instead, because the children are not designated as actors and awarded the rights they should be, they receive nothing except what their parents decide to give them. How's that for exploitation?
The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) set standards for child labor except in the case of child actors where an exemption was granted. The Act allowed individual states to set that standard. Each state therefore has its own regulations, often to the detriment of children, assuming they are recognized as actors to begin with. California and New York have the most comprehensive regulations to protect children and should be used as the baseline for child actor protection nationally.
To solve the problems surrounding the use of children in reality shows two things must happen right away. First, if a child is depicted in a show – reality or otherwise - they should be classified as child actors. Second, and as a direct result of their actor designation, they must be protected by regulations, not of the State in which the show is produced but by a new standard using the child labor laws of California or New York as a minimum guide.
cont.
The national child abuse prevention group Child AbuseWatch has been beating this drum on behalf of the plus 8 children over the Summer months. They have written to anyone who will listen to highlight the issue of protection of the children on TLC, using J&K+8 as an example. They have campaigned with emails across the country and recently called for an advertiser boycott of the Jon and Kate plus 8 show. One advertiser, Nestle USA, responded by informing Child AbuseWatch that they had pulled their ads from the show.
Today Child AbuseWatch upped the ante with a new campaign calling for advertisers to pull their ads from TLC completely. They have been asked to do this until such time as TLC either stops using minor children on their channel or designates all children they use on shows as child actors and accord them the rights that go with that. They also called, as they have done many times since June, for the immediate cancellation of the show Jon & Kate +8.
Writing to the top echelons of advertiser management Child AbuseWatch.net is confident of swift and decisive responses from these advertisers particularly with a tough holiday season ahead. “TLC has refused to acknowledge their irresponsibility in how they have handled the issue of children on their reality shows,” Child AbuseWatch’s Director, Evin Daly, said today. “Instead they have, in the case of J&K+8, decided to put lipstick on the pig in a concerted effort to save the show and maintain earnings through the end of the season, all at the expense of the children...again.”
Child AbuseWatch is a child advocacy group who have built a reputation of speaking out (loudly) wherever they see indications of child abuse or exploitation. TLC is one of the firms they have challenged as was Hewlett Packard who they successfully pressured last fall to remove a sound track from an ad which was written by and financially benefited a pedophile.
According to their website, Child AbuseWatch is an international child abuse prevention organization whose stated mission is ‘the protection of children from abuse.” They have three websites customized for world regions. Their websites are designed to education the public about abuse awareness and prevention, in addition to providing law enforcement and medical professionals with resources. They have a presence in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
www.abusewatch.net
Reference
Access Child AbuseWatch's TLC file: http://www.abusewatch.net/CAN_TLC_JKFile.php
The writer Leah Tobin is an editor for ButlerReport. ButlerReport/Gold Coast Media Inc - 2009. Links to and use of this column permitted with acknowledgement of authorship. This column is the opinion of the above-mentioned writer for the ButlerReport only and in no way reflects the opinions of our advertisers, sponsors or news partners.
091009
©2008 The Butler Report. All rights reserved. Gold Coast Media Inc.
Developed & maintained by Webraven.net
Post a Comment
Want to see your comment published? Follow a few simple rules:
1. Do not use Anonymous. Pick a name (click Name/URL to type in a name) and stick to the same name.
2. Anonymous insider stories should be emailed to us directly (in confidence). They will not be posted here unless we can verify the validity, such as with photos. This is not to discourage legitimate insiders from speaking out, but to guard against all the fake stories out there.
3. No insulting other posters or picking fights, refusing to let things go and move on. Stop with the snotty comments--they will be rejected. Treat people here like how you would talk to the person you most respect in your life, it's just pleasant that way.
4. No trash talking other blogs/bloggers here.