TV producers put sting in the Scorpion's tail

Australian families are rushing to have a chance to see their children take part in the next big reality TV hit Escape from Scorpion Island.
The show – the second series of a show to be produced by the BBC in the UK but the first to be filmed in Australia – will see 16 British and Australian kidsaged between 11 and 14 marooned on an exotic island.
In tried and true reality TV style, the children will compete in teams to be the first to conquer the island and learn how to escape from it.
This is all sounding a bit Lord of the Flies to me.
Others seems less concerned.
Tim Brooke-Hunt, ABC TV's Executive Head of Children's, has described the new joint venture as “an exciting new initiative for ABC Kids Television”.
“Since the Australian call for contestants went out a week and ahalf ago, there has been over 21,000 web views and over 10,000entry-form downloads," he says.
Good television possibly but is deliberately marooning your kids on an island good parenting?
Celebrity psychologist an counselor Dr. Laura Schlessinger would clearly not think so.
She says of reality TV involving children: “It is not enough to argue that these children have their parents’ permission – parents cannot legally pimp their children, yet this is precisely what is going on here.
“The privacy and dignity of these children have been stripped from them. They are hawked by cameras as their so-called parents push the envelope farther than any responsible, loving, protective parent should, in an attempt to gain ratings and increase celebrity status.”
While that seems a bit harsh, the growing trend of recruiting children for reality TV shows is worrying.
Right now, a British TV program, being filmed in Australia, forces fat children to hunt for food with Aborigines. Even the title Fat Kids Can't Hunt should be cause for concern.
And then there was the US-produced Kid Nation which put 40 eight-to-15-year-olds in a New Mexico ghost town and asked them to form a functioning society.
To take part in that show parents had to sign a waiver giving away their right to sue CBS even if their kids contracted an STD or died. There was also grave concern about the show violating child labour laws – none of which bothered the parents desperate to see their kids involved in the second series.
No-one is arguing that Escape from Scorpion Island will be anything like this but really do we need it?
Many will argue that wrapping our kids in cotton wool does them no good in the end but should we really be feeding them to the TV sharks and filming the experience?
I think not.