At last, at long last, television has created a reality series that would be perfect for me-- 17-year old me, that is. MTV is currently developing The Paper, an eight-episode long reality series about the high-stakes world of... high school newspapers. That’s right, America’s gawkiest and most-curfewed newshounds are finally finding their day in the sun.
Perhaps overreacting given the controversy about the CBS Kid Nation show, MTV reps are reluctantly using the term “reality”: "It's more of a docu-series, where we're talking about the lives of our participants," executive producer Marshall Eisen told Variety. Isn’t that what we typically call, uh, documentaries? And didn’t those used to be the only kind of reality programming before Mark Burnett came and brainwashed us all?
The show will take place at Florida’s Cypress Bay High School, a mammoth school with over 5,300 enrolled students (that’s nearly twice the size of my college!). The newspaper, called The Circuit, is currently reporting on issues like overcrowded classrooms and an editorial paean to long-lost planet Pluto. I’d imagine they’ll beef up the coverage for MTV’s cameras, though-- expose on cheerleading uniforms, anyone?
Really, though, as the former editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, it warms my heart to see teenage journalists getting their day in the sun. If these kids look like total Laguna Beach knockoffs, though, I’m crying foul: the high school newspaper was nothing if not Acne City.
