Starting Sunday night at 10:30 on MTV, reporters with Down syndrome, Wiliams syndrome and other intellectual and physical disabilities will be broadcasting their own unique news magazine show. “How’s Your News?” is produced by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of “South Park.”

From Tom Shales in the Washington Post:

… MTV’s new “How’s Your News?” show can be seen not as exploitation of people who have mental disabilities but rather as the expression of a subculture that has much to contribute to the mainstream but never had much of an opportunity.

… “How’s Your News?” should fairly easily outshine [other new MTV shows] because it truly is different and because it offers a perspective unavailable anywhere else. Will some of the same kids who jeer at the disabled among them tune in to laugh at those appearing on the program? Maybe, but the last laugh will probably be the reporters’.

The show isn’t really “about” mental disabilities; it’s just a chance to look through someone else’s eyes and see the world in ways you’ve never seen it before. It could be part of a course in the humanities, or just a course in humanity. It’s also a wickedly entertaining half-hour, one you’ll never regret having surrendered to your television set.

See also: MTV debuts a different kind of ‘news’ — Ellen Gray in the Philadelphia Daily News

(MTV photo)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 7:28 am and is filed under Down syndrome, entertainment, genetics, intellectual/developmental disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED, public attitudes, television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.