Entertainment

Was baby's fate made for TV?

ABC says a 20/20 episode on five couples vying to adopt isn't reality TV. A tape of the show suggests otherwise.

[AP] On 20/20 tonight, Barbara Walters, right, will present a segment on 16-year old Jessica choosing among five couples who want to adopt her child.

Notables at the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 were insistent this week as criticism began to build over its upcoming story on an open adoption: Any connection to a reality TV show was a mistake of overzealous promotion.

But references to the competitive adoption as a made-for-reality TV event are sprinkled throughout an advance tape of tonight's story about five couples, all of them seeking to adopt the same baby from a 16-year-old mother in Ohio.

The growing controversy over the story's seeming similarity to a game show highlight the blurring lines between journalism, documentary and reality TV in a world where nearly every event of small or large consequence is fodder for the small screen.

"You might be thinking: five couples competing for one baby? Sounds like a reality show," says anchor Barbara Walters during a report dubbed "Be My Baby," scheduled to air on 20/20 at 10 p.m. tonight on WFTS-Ch. 28. "But with more than 200,000 couples nationwide (seeking to adopt) . . . birth mothers . . . have more power than ever."

A spokeswoman for the show said the version circulated to critics will likely be edited further before broadcast, but all the comments from prospective parents will remain. "We documented a process that was already happening," said 20/20 spokeswoman Alyssa Ziegler Apple. "We hope people will watch it and form their own opinion."

The story features a teen mother-to-be named Jessica, who plans to place her baby with a qualified family through an "open adoption," in which adoptive parents are chosen by the birth mother from a group of applicants.

But Jessica and her family have some conditions: They want lots of access to visit the child in its new home.

Jessica is also selective about who will adopt her baby, narrowing the prospects to five families she plans to interview and watch closely before making a final choice. Cameras from 20/20 followed the process from the initial interviews until the baby was placed with a family in October.

Initially, ABC's promotions didn't hesitate to invoke images of Survivor and The Bachelor. A network promotion last weekend put it this way: "A unique television event. Five couples, desperate to adopt, all competing for her baby. Four will lose, one will get the baby of their dreams."

Walters' 20/20 cohost, John Stossel, last week referred to the segment as "the ultimate reality show."

The hype brought a deluge of criticism from pundits and adoption agencies this week, not to mention a threat to take legal action by mentalist Uri Geller, who contends the story is a ripoff of a novel he's publishing.

In an e-mail to 20/20 viewers, Walters acknowledged that "some of our initial on-air promos went a little over the top."

But such apologies don't account for the references to reality TV that appear throughout the advance tape of the program, or the storytelling techniques that seem taken directly from a reality TV series.

"We were joking that it's kind of like The Bachelor," says prospective parent Tab Brown during the report. "You're in or you're out tonight."

As it turns out, a very pregnant Jessica rejects three of the couples based on the initial interview. One of them, high school sweethearts Beth and Matt Trnka, are handed a 2-year-old who had been dropped off for adoption that morning, with no warning or counseling. Jessica must decide between two remaining couples, so she asks for a second interview - a "lightning round," according to Walters' narration - to help her decide.

"If you've ever been in sports, it's like "Okay, can I make the cut? Can I make the next cut?' " said Tab Brown, who with wife Karen was still in the running. "There's some competition."

Eventually, the Browns decide they're uncomfortable with open-ended visitation at the same time Jessica decides she wants the other couple. But there is still time for Jessica to change her mind: Ohio law requires a three-day wait after the birth before the mother can relinquish her parental rights.

On the third day after the baby boy is born, the adoptive parents wait more than an hour at the hospital for Jessica to sign the papers. And in a scene that seems crafted especially for the cameras, they are ushered in to see Jessica without being told she has signed off. They learn they'll get the child just as she hands over the baby.

For Al Tompkins, broadcast/online group leader at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which owns the St. Petersburg Times, what separates the 20/20 report from reality TV is, well, reality.

"Reality TV is make-believe and contrived. . . . There are not these people who landed on a tropical island by mistake; they were chosen and placed there and paid," said Tompkins. "What's very different, theoretically, about this adoption story, is that we're watching something that would have taken place if the cameras weren't there."

Questions remain: Is it ethical to place such a young mother at the center of such an emotional story? Particularly, when she's telling the camera: "I was basically deciding if they were going to have children or not. I was kind of playing God."

And even though fears the report will trivialize adoption seem unfounded, some may worry about the picture this program paints of the process. "You can expect a lot of conversation in the adoption community about how this portrays adoption and what, if any, effect this will have on other adoptions," said Tompkins, who is father to three adopted children.

"A lot of what we know about things like adoption we know from watching TV, so it has to be reasonably portrayed,' he added. "This is a thoughtful, serious process. It's not a game."

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