Local teenager to be featured on ‘Nick News’ segment on bullying
A Cape Coral teen will be featured in a new half-hour special “Sticks, Stones and CyberSlams” on Nickelodeon this Sunday at 9 p.m.
“Nick News” with Linda Ellerbee will take a hard look at the subject of bullying, due to the increase of kids killing themselves as a result of being bullied. The show will feature kids talking about being bullied and bullies talking about why they do what they do. Both groups will then talk about ways to stop bullying.
“Can we stop bullying? If so how,” Ellerbee said in a prepared statement. “Experts say as many as 60 percent of all middle school kids admit to having been bullied. The answers aren’t easy. Neither are these stories. But they’re important stories.”
Mariner High School sophomore Amanda Pierson was one of the many youngsters featured in the new series. The 16-year-old said her grandmother contacted “Nick News” because she was bullied in middle school. Pierson said after her grandmother contacted the studio, officials then contacted her to ask her a few questions.
Pierson said the series is going to be something new for a lot of kids because she believes it will make them realize that bullying is a bigger issue than what people really think.
“Bullying is a bigger issue that what people take it as,” she said, because “it’s everywhere … it’s in school, on the computer and at home.”
Pierson traveled to New York a couple days before the filming began, so she could experience the city for the first time.
She said it was a very new and interesting experience for her and her mother to travel to New York and be apart of a show.
On the morning of Sept. 9, Pierson entered the studio and shared her story about being bullied in middle school.
“It was a very long, but exciting day,” she said, adding that it took about an hour and a half to shoot the show.
Pierson’s advice to those who are being bullied is to talk to an adult, teacher or somebody that can help.
She said she did not feel like anyone was taking care of her situation, along with feeling that no one cared.
“I told my grandmother right away because my grandmother worked at the school,” Pierson said about her personal experience of being bullied. “My grandmother took care of it.”
Overall, Pierson said she enjoyed her experience of traveling to New York and participating in a Nickelodeon news show.
“It was a very fun experience,” Pierson said. “I learned a lot from a lot of other people. It was something new that I have never done before.”
The other kids featured on Sunday’s show are from Albany, N.Y.; Springfield, Mass..; South Hadley, Mass.; St. Louis, Mo.; Frederick, Md.; Atlanta; Winter Springs, Fla., Colorado Springs, Colo..; Philadelphia; San Francisco; Healdsburg, Calif.; Marshall, Mich.; and Cleburne, Texas.
“Nick News” is produced by Lucky Duck Productions and is currently in its 19th year, making it the longest running kids new show in television history.