News inspires reality series on ABC

NEW YORK • You're standing in line at a deli behind two day laborers fumbling with cash and struggling with English, when the clerk begins spewing hatred. Go back to your country, he says, or go eat at Taco Bell.

What would you do?

Stand in uncomfortable silence, hoping simply to leave as quickly as possible? Tell the clerk to shut up? Or join in with the bigotry, kicking the men while they're down?

When ABC News set up that scenario in a New Jersey deli, hiring actors to portray the clerk and laborers and hiding cameras to record the reactions of real people, it found all of those responses - and more.

The intriguing take on public attitudes toward immigration is featured on tonight's episode of "Primetime: What Would You Do?" a news-reality hybrid that's gotten some traction on ABC.

Producer Chris Whipple thought of the idea after wondering if there was a way to do a TV version of "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

ABC carried five "What Would You Do?" hours last winter, and doubled the order for this year after it was the highest-rated newsmagazine among younger viewers.

"It's the kind of insightful television that makes you think, the water-cooler stuff you talk about the next morning," said John Quinones, who anchors the series. "It's pretty powerful, and a reminder that you're not in this world alone. You have to look out for your fellow human beings."

Not all the social experiments are serious. ABC sought people's reactions to loud cell phone users and public displays of affection.

"What Would You Do?" is also a sign of changing times at broadcast news divisions. Quinones is a veteran journalist who reported about Central America for "World News Tonight" and won Emmy Awards for stories on the Congo's rain forest and the Yanomamo Indians.

He acknowledged trepidation about the idea at first, but he said it has been erased by how many times he's seen brave people do the right thing. Some of the experiments come directly from the news: The recent stabbing death of an immigrant from Ecuador on Long Island has inspired a segment where people's reactions will be tested when they see day laborers threatened with physical harm.