Do unemployed need 'Fairy Jobmother'? Yes, says reality TV.

Shoot! Another casting call missed. How'd that happen?

All I needed was to have been out of work for awhile and to have lost all hope of having a career. A financial setback probably would have earned me a few points, too.

Piece of cake for any of us 6.1 million Americans felled by the Great Recession and classified as "long-term unemployed" (out of work six months or longer) by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Really, though, I hope the participants in Lifetime's new "Fairy Jobmother" get something more out of the cable TV reality show than their 15 minutes of fame. (Even this season's recession-themed "The Apprentice" promised face time with real executives.)

The official website for "Fairy Jobmother" is a bit thin: very basic job-search and résumé-writing tips; clothing advice from the winner of Lifetime's Season 7 "Project Runway" (cross-promotion alert!); and a couple of lame-sounding "Career Kick Start Boot Camps" attended by series star Hayley Taylor that seem to offer the same tips as the website.

The events, scheduled in Los Angeles and New York City a few days before the series airs Oct. 28, suggest attendees can "Interview with a Lifetime rep," but then offer this fine print:

"This is not an offer for employment, permanent or temporary, but an offer to participate in an interview process for consideration for a three-month paid freelance job opportunity subject to Lifetime’s applicant and hiring review process. Lifetime is an equal opportunity employer."

To which I say: Huh?

Both the show and Taylor are imports from Britain, where "Fairy Jobmother" is popular. (Here's a YouTube review from a perky Brit who likens the show to "Supernanny" for the unemployed.) Lifetime has ordered eight hour-long episodes.

The cable network describes Taylor as a stay-at-home mom who started offering career advice to others as a volunteer, then parlayed that into a reality show. Points for gumption, eh fellow job hunters?

The recession, as captured by The Donald



The cast of "The Apprentice," Season 10.
(NBC photo)

Somehow I missed the casting call for unemployed professionals for the new season of "The Apprentice," which premiers tonight on NBC. Darn!

Lawyers, an engineer, an accountant, Realtors, master's program graduates -- no laid-off journalists, though -- the country's near-fall into a second Great Depression will be told through its effect on their lives. "About a year and a half ago, I was laid off," says one cast member, breaking down in a promo clip for the show. "Oh my God," says another, "what am I going to do now?" Adds a third, "I'm a victim of the economy, basically."

Yes, but "nothing is more American than a second chance," intones the announcer on the clip, informing us "The Apprentice" has changed its stripes this season, leaving behind the celebrity contenders of the past couple of years to return to the original formula: go-getters eager to prove themselves for the chance to work with The Donald.

Indeed, Trump himself seems excited about the format shift, telling Entertainment Weekly "It's as good as Season 1," which he maintains was "the biggest show on television." But playing off people's bad economic luck?

"Today, the economy -- you have a 17 percent unemployment, real unemployment of 17 percent," Trump says in the interview. "We almost went through Great Depression No. 2, and in a lot of cases, you could say we did go through it. So the world is a different place, and we want to show the current world as opposed to a fantasy."

The stakes are high for the show's 16 contenders, he says. "We have one young man who has five children and a wife and no job." (That's about as close to real as these cast members may get.)

But Trump has a big heart: Even as he's leveling his famous "You're fired!" in the boardroom, he's helping this season's contenders get their careers back on track. "We’re setting these people up with great executives at great companies, beyond 'The Apprentice.' That, we’ve never done before," he tells EW. " ... we’re hooking them up with great job opportunities, like at Phillips-Van Heusen and Macy’s and some of our great sponsors on the show."

Isn't that just grand?

"America goes back to work on 'The Apprentice'," TV Guide said in a headline. If only that were true for the 14.9 million others who currently are unemployed.

Reality that's begging for a show

Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New York City"

Here's a suggestion for Bravo: Produce a TV reality show on journalism.

Chronicle the ups and downs of reporting the news, as you have followed the everyday -- but certainly not ordinary -- lives of housewives (top), chefs (middle) and obsessive-compulsive real estate developers (bottom).

Bravo's "Top Chef"

Just think of the possibil- ities: reporter-editor disagree- ments coming to blows; columnists calling out one another; writers unmasked as plagiarists. Oh, the drama!

Bravo's "Flipping Out"

You could film reporters-in-training as their journalism schools send them off on un- paid intern- ships -- particularly those that take up the slack after news organizations cut their payroll -- or as they dive into social media and go about developing their own brand. (Although that plot line might be too close to one in your "Real Housewives" series.)

You could get in on the debate over whether newspapers are dead or dying and/or necessary for democracy's survival. (On second thought, that might be too academic, unless you could find a way to bring back Ben Franklin.)

Or, if you move quickly, you might catch a real tear-jerker in progress: whether Honolulu joins Seattle, Denver and other U.S. metros in becoming a one-newspaper town. There, the owner of one paper wants to sell and the owner of the other wants to buy -- but can't before selling what it already owns. Some say that's a lark destined to fail. So if you get on a plane now, you might be on hand for the death rattle.

Hollywood has crafted some pretty good movies around newspapers, but TV hasn't done much lately. So it's not only time for a starring role, but timely, too.