In the summer of 1953 Camp Jabberwocky was founded, in a time where people with disabilities were ostracized, with services and rights for the disabled being minimal. Camp Jabberwocky’s mission for years has been to bring the disabled to the center of society opposed to having them on the periphery. For years they have had people with disabilities come each summer, returning year to year to live and work in a community together and now the camp finds themselves in the national spotlight on MTV with their own news magazine television show, with campers as the reporters. 10 years ago on the small island of Martha’s Vineyard, off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts the â€How’s Your News†program started it’s humble beginnings when a counselor, Arthur Bradford, introduced video cameras into the camps curriculum. Just as anyone is, the campers were immediately excited about the prospect of seeing themselves on a television. The first hurdle to get over was a format that would allow all campers who wanted to be on camera, the opportunity to appear in the videos. The most sensible format seemed to be a news show. One day the camp sent two reporters, Bobby Bird and Sean Costello, two men with Down syndrome, to do â€man-on-the-street†interviews. This turned out to be a great experience and the camp continued to send out more reporters all summer long. At the end of the summer VHS tapes were made showcasing some of the best work done. The tapes were distributed to family and friends. Those tapes were then copied and continued to circulate until they eventually ended up in the hands of South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Stone and Parker were impressed with what they saw and then got in touch with Bradford and asked if there was any way they could see more of these videos. The three men developed a working relationship and then Stone and Parker’s cartoon South Park became successful and that allowed them to finance a short documentary featuring the best reporters from the summer camp in 1998. Then in 2002 five reporters with disabilities hit the road for a cross country trip to conduct their street interviews and created a feature film. That was then followed by another short documentary that showcased the reporters’ trip to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 2004. After the half hour special that was made for TV, the â€How’s Your News†crew began to think bigger. They wanted a TV series. In creating the series certain things have had to be taken into account, the biggest issue being people’s perception of what the show actually is. When the idea is brought up among some there is a fear that the reporters’ disabilities are being exploited and laughed at, but if you’ve ever seen any of their work it isn’t at all. The â€How’s Your News†web page has the following statement addressing such concerns: â€Before we tell you about our background we’d like to answer one of the most frequently asked questions about â€How’s Your News?†This question is: â€Has anyone ever found this material offensive?†The short, simple answer is: no. We fully understand why people would express concern upon hearing the concept behind HYN, but we’d hope anyone with such concerns would take a look at the films we’ve made and get to know the background of this project. All of our reporters, and their families, are very proud of this project. The disability community has widely embraced this project, often using our films for training or inspirational purposes. Far from being offensive, they provide a positive, empowering view of life with a disability. That’s our opinion. Please watch our films and let us know what YOU think!†Another concern that many have is they hear that the project is financed by the creators of South Park. It is widely known and not disputed that South Park is an offensive program, but Stone and Parker have limited their involvement in the actual interviews and content that â€How’s Your News†creates. Even Bradford has said that none of the interviews are scripted and the reporters aren’t made or told to do anything. The questions are real and come entirely from the reporters. When pitching the â€How’s Your News†concept as a series all of the above has been taken into account. Many people would say MTV might not be the right network to air this type of show but if you talk to the creators they couldn’t disagree more. In an interview with Boing Boing Matt Stone and Arthur Bradford both addressed their choice of network, â€One of the first things that Arthur Bradford said about doing How’s Your News as a TV show was that he absolutely didn’t want to pitch the show to Lifetime or PBS or anyplace else where you would EXPECT a show like this. He wanted to fly into the center of the sun and have the show on MTV. The How’s Your News crew is about redefining expectations and the show is by far their best workâ€.†said Stone. Bradford had this to add, â€I think the big question everyone has about our TV series goes something like this â€Does this show really belong on MTV? Aren’t all those kids going to laugh for all the wrong reasons?†I have so many thoughts about that I don’t know where to begin, but let me just say that I think this line of questioning does a sort of disservice to both people with disabilities and the kids who watch MTV. People with disabilities don’t really need a bunch of watchdogs looking out for their â€best interestsâ€. They are most often able to do this themselves and I can assure you our cast is extremely proud of the work they did on this show, as are their families. And the kids who watch MTV are much smarter than we are giving them credit for. They deserve something like this, a show that doesn’t assume they can’t decide things for themselves.†An extremely important element in doing this show the right way is making it the reporters’ show. They decide what questions to ask, there isn’t anyone telling them what to say or do creating an environment that would exploit their disabilities but instead empowering these people and showing the world, now through their weekly MTV broadcast Sundays at 8PM EST, that the disabled community is capable of so much more than many think or give them credit for. When explaining the raw beauty that is in â€How’s Your News†Bradford points to a story of Jeremy Vest, who in Bradford’s opinion is one of the best reporters, â€My favorite moment with him was on the red carpet at the Grammys when he blew off all the big pop stars like Rianna and Slash because really wanted to talk to the guy who did the voice for Kermit the Frog. He literally refused to talk to Slash because he was so concerned that Kermit would leave before he got the chance to say hello. For Jeremy, meeting that muppet was the biggest thrill of the night, that and meeting Wolfgang Puck.†â€How’s Your News†not only could serve to empower those who are disabled but also help mainstream media and society be more accepting and understanding of people with disabilities.
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