Shocking new reality show banks on people's debt

There is a new trend within the television industry called 'poverty porn' where TV networks produce and air shows that exploit families with financial problems to gain higher ratings.

The Briefcase focuses on two middle class American families who are debt sticken and surviving paycheck to paycheck. The show's producer pitches up at the contestant's door, who have been told they will be interviewed as part of a documentry not a reality TV show, with a briefcase containing $101 000 the producers tell the family the money is their's but it comes with a choice.

 

 

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You can see their faces sink when the producer says the following: "You can either keep all the money, give it all away or give some of it away" to a family that is equally or most often in more debt then they are.

 

Over the next 72 hours the families are given details about the other family including how much debt they are in, what their circumstances are and they even visit each other's houses when they are not there. At this point the families have been juggling the biggest moral dilemma they have ever had to deal with: save our family, or save the other family. The show is filled with moments of guilt, tears and arguments and this is the upsetting part, whilst CBS capitalises on the family's anguish and financial struggles the other family has also been given a Briefcase with $101 000 and the same choice.