Aug. 7, 2002
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	Fox News Reality Challenge: For Gay and Straight
	BY DAVID R. GUARINO When it comes to taking journalistic risks, Fox News Chicago has been at the forefront of those organizations stepping up to the plate, setting the bar, and winning coveted awards in the process of educating, challenging and engaging their viewership. Take, for example, a Fox News Chicago race-relations series entitled, "The Experiment in Black and White," which was taped in April 2001 and copped some of journalism's highest awards, including an Emmy, a Society of Professional Journalists' Peter Lisagor Award and the Scripps Howard Foundation's Jack L. Howard Award. The nine-part "Experiment in Black and White" had a simple pretext: to pair five Blacks and five whites together in one house for one week. The resulting interaction of the 10 individuals was captured on television with the goal of revealing the participants' prejudices, fears, ignorance, and commonalties in an effort to work towards problem solving, better communication and understanding between the two races.  This award-winning, groundbreaking piece is currently being used as a conflict-resolution-teaching tool in more than two dozen primary and secondary schools, universities and workplaces across the United States. It was recently announced that Fox News Special Projects Reporter / Producer Mark Saxenmeyer and his morning anchor/ reporter colleague Darlene Hill were named winners of the National Edward R. Murrow Award for Journalistic Excellence in News Documentary for "The Experiment in Black and White." Saxenmeyer and Hill are scheduled to receive the award from The Radio-Television News Directors Association Oct. 7 in New York City. And now the award-winning Fox News Chicago team of Saxenmeyer and Hill are joining forces again to issue the ultimate challenge to the heterosexual and homosexual communities: "The Experiment: Gay and Straight." This revolutionary and daring concept will translate into a scenario in which five men and five women of disparate ages, ethnicities and biases will be selected from a growing pool, which already exceeds 700 applicants. Five of the selected individuals will be gay/lesbian, five will be straight. The goal is to build bridges between the straight and gay populations in a concentrated effort to improve understanding and communication between the often disparate communities of gays, lesbians and straights. The project will be conducted along the following lines: In early September 2002, 10 Chicago-area strangers will be literally sequestered inside a three-bedroom, two-bath home rented for the purpose of conducting this experiment. As in other reality challenges, the participants will leave behind all semblances of their daily life: schooling, families, jobs, children, partners, computers, TV's, radios, telephones, etc. They will, in essence, lose all contact with the outer world and eat, sleep, socialize and perform assigned tasks together. As previously stated, the ultimate goal of this ultimate challenge is to promote a greater understanding between and mutual acceptance by the gay/lesbian and straight communities. Fox Chicago's Mark Saxenmeyer and Darlene Hill will again oversee and conduct this project. Interested potential candidates must be at least 18 years of age and able to leave school, work, family, friends, partners, pagers, phones, televisions, etc., for an entire week. Participants will not be compensated for their involvement, and will essentially be sequestered from the outside world for the length of the project. Fox News also cautions that applicants will undergo extensive background checks prior to selection. Anyone possessing a criminal record of any kind will not be accepted. The day-to-day events of the entire week of the project, which will be held at a still-to-be-announced Chicago-area location in early September, will be videotaped and edited into a feature series and documentary to air on Fox News at 9 p.m. sometime during the month of November 2002.   Applications are available on the Fox News website at www.foxchicago.com through mid-August. For further information, contact Mark Saxenmeyer at (312) 565-5521 or e-mail him at MSAX06@aol.com.
		Mark Saxenmeyer
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