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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0745.005 1996-1998 ti Yours R>4vro The Organization A. Aistorv and Mission Youth Radio evolved out of Youth News, which existed from 1979-89. Building on the successes of that program, Youth Radio was established in 1992 as a training program for teenagers in broadcasting and journalism that brings youth voices to the airwaves. Through an intensive course of hands-on study, one-on-one relationships with adults, and direct production of their own programs, young people gain skills, contacts, and self-esteem that help them succeed in the world. For those who go on to pursue a career in broadcasting, Youth Radio opens avenues for those traditionally shut out of the best jobs in the field-girls, people of color, and low-income youth. Although many teens enter the program intending to become disc jockeys, they soon discover the motivation and support needed to acquire skills in language arts, such as writing and presenting scripted material on the air, interviewing, and reporting. Students also discover that there is a wider world of career opportunities in broadcasting, including sound recording, film and video, and new technologies such as multi-media. Training in the latest digital technologies-Youth Radio students learn on some of the best equipment in the Bay Area- gives young people the inside track in the computer revolution in media production. At Youth Radio, young people learn more than the technical side of media production. The program fosters each student's ability to express ideas, think critically, and resolve conflicts. Through trusting relationships with their peers and caring adults, students build confidence, hope, and the ability to focus on creating a positive future for themselves. These qualities are essential for meeting the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood, including success in any field of work. Youth Radio participants are primarily from "at risk" high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Young people are recruited from schools and youth programs in the wider East Bay and, to a lesser extent, San Francisco. Students aze chosen through a competitive application process that emphasizes participation by girls, people of color, and low-income youth. Of the students trained to date, 82% have been low-income, and 52% are girls. African-Americans have made up 43% of the students, Asians 18%, Latinos 16%, Caucasians 19% and Arab and Native Americans 4%. Beyond the Bay Area, young people in 17 community collaboratives across California are being trained in media advocacy skills. They are mentored and encouraged by Youth Radio teams of professionals and youth, working together to expand youth participation in local and statewide violence prevention efforts. A growing number of youth serving organizations in the Bay Area are asking Youth Radio for this type of technical assistance--youth training youth in how to use the media to their best advantage. To reach young people who are most vulnerable, who fall outside the loop of positive engagement, Youth Radio has adapted its 10-week hands-on curriculum for the special needs of incazcerated youth. Two staff people lead an intensive weekly training effort at Log Cabin Ranch, under the auspices of The San Francisco Probation Department. One of the goals of these violence ~;omm. Dia 7~S• OS Pilo N®. eY 1'reserde~ /tSED C- Dote_----- - F BBt. TM ~~r County Louncil ibt I,.~~~11~,p 1 ~ 19Q8 Youth Radio 2 prevention projects is to develop a cadre of trained, media savvy young people across the state, including some who can speak to youth from "having been there." In addition, Youth Radio reaches young and adult audiences throughout the United States through its award winning programming, and provides journalists and news directors with technical assistance in cornmunicating with and involving youth. B. Youth Radio Program Areas Youth Radio has four main program areas: (1) Hands-on-Training; (2) Broadcast Programming; (3) Work Placement; and (4) Violence Prevention. 1. Hands-on Training in a Professional Setting Hands-on skills training is the cornerstone of Youth Radio. The Core Training is an intensive, ten-week course in the fundamentals of radio/media production and journalism. Students receive hands-on instruction, mentoring, and career guidance from some of the Bay Area's best journalists, engineers, and music programmers, including people from KCBS, KBLX, KMEL, KQED, KKSF, KPFA, Lucas Digital, and The GAVIN Report. As part of their training, students produce their own weekly show on KPFB-FM, Ymrth Lt Control, atwo-hour, live radio magazine by, for, and about teenagers. In this real-life ]earning laboratory, students are responsible for all aspects of production, from planning to engineering to announcing. Promising graduates of the core training are hired as Peer Teachers to train new students, further develop their skills, and staff the office. The concept of youth-training-youth has been so successful that more than half of the core training is now taught by Peer Teachers and they now participate in virtually every training situation at Youth Radio. Under close adult supervision, Peer Teachers develop leadership skills, act as role models for new students, and are paid for their work. Additional advanced learning opportunities aze available through internships, mentorships, and classes in new technologies such as multi-media, digital editing, and on-line communications. Thanks to a donation from Digidesign, students work with some of the best digital editing equipment in the Bay Area. Youth Radio is also developing its role as a multi-media center for at risk youth, including participation in a student-run Internet bulletin board sponsored by the San Jose Mercury News called Digital High which distributes youth-produced news and information to high schools around the state. 2. Youth Voices: Programming Bv, For, and About Youth Youth Radio provides a forum seldom heard in the media for youth to express their ideas and concerns. Working with these young people, reporters and producers around the country are realizing how much exciting material is missed when youth are excluded from the media. Youth Radio 3 In addition to Youth In Control every Friday night on Pacifica's KPFB, students now produce an ongoing weekly two-hour show, "Youth Radio on WILD 1 OT' on Number Two-rated Bay Area teen station, KYLD. Student commentaries air Sundays on the top news station KCBS- AM. Youth Radio students can also be seen occasionally on KRON-TV's "First Cut." Stories and commentaries for young and adult audiences can be heard on NPR, Marketplace, KQED, Latino USA, Pacifica National News and other outlets. Under a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), youth reporters have a wonderful opportunity to work closely with professional producers to create stories for National Public Radio. Youth Radio has recently begun distributing print and audio versions of its material on-line, reaching an expanding network of new audiences through the intemet. The response has been phenomenal, in terms of interest in the individual commentaries and in Youth Radio as a model for working with young people. Youth Voices topics range from critical issues such as teen pregnancy and drugs, to timeless concerns such as dating and being short. A sampling of recent topics includes the Million Man March, the predominance of liquor stores in African American neighborhoods, the importance of books, relations between Latinos and African Americans, does `gangsta' rap contribute to gun violence?, teens and technology, and "Back to School: A Plea to Adults to Discipline Us More." These stories coumer the inaccurate stereotype of this generation as ignorant, gun-toting aberrants. A recent production log of Youth Radio programming is attached. 3. Work Placement Since its inception, Youth Radio has had strong links with both schools and industry. Through the School-To-Work program, these links are being formalized into a system for preparing and training students for a successful transition into the work world. Youth Radio is establishing internships and mentorships with top broadcasting professionals, media outlets, and related businesses, including KRON-TV, KMEL, Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope Film Company, KQED, KDIA, KPFA, KBLX, Merritt College, the Asian American Journalists' Association, the Black Repertory Theater, and the Filipino American Arts Exposition, among others. Internships have been established in engineering, production, sales, news, and music production. Students are prepazed for these placements through individualized career counseling and classes in time management, resume writing, workplace norms, and more. Youth Radio can offer to the industry talented young people who are more highly skilled than many coming out of four yeaz college communications programs. This past year Youth Radio was funded as a community classroom through ROP (Regional Occupational Programs). This relationship has streamlined credit for Youth Radio students at the high school and higher education levels, and has assisted in our development of curricula that serves as a true bridge between the two. Students are also encouraged to pursue their formal academic education in every way possible, and to apply for awards and national programs. Two Youth Radio students were accepted last summer as the youngest members of the PRNDUPublic Radio News Directors mentorship Seminar on Reporting, held in Minneapolis. The National Federation of Community Broadcasters recently honored them with an award for their PRNDI productions on Civic Journalism. Another student was accepted, again as the youngest, in National Public Radio's ten-month Youth Radio 4 mentorship/shadowing program for reporters and producers, which includes two two-week stays at NPR in Washington, D.C. She was one of only seven chosen from a national pool of applicams. 4. Violence Prevention: Community Involvement & Media Advocacy Youth Radio is developing a model of national significance for engaging youth in violence prevention through the media. This three-year program trains and involves young people in local and statewide media advocacy through the Violence Prevention Initiative of The California Wellness Foundation. Youth Radio teams of peer teachers and adult professionals work one-on-one with 17 community collaboratives across California, teaching, mentoring, and advising local youth on how to use the media to combat violence in their own communities. Not only aze peer teachers powerful ambassadors and role models for other young people, they are developing an empowering network in which they share ideas, strategies, and expertise while helping each other become leaders and spokespersons. Close to 900 students from youth groups have been reached through this media advocacy outreach program which is also responding to needs expressed in the Bay Area as much as possible. Many Youth Radio students become active community participants by speaking out regularly at public forums, conferences, and in the schools. As articulate, media-savvy spokespersons, Youth Radio students become part of the public discussion on problems and solutions. Building on the tremendous response students have received from other young people, Youth Radio has launched a Street Team to spread its violence prevention activities further into the community. The Street Team went on the road this summer with a DJ set-up, music, and speak-out microphones to places kids gather-youth festivals, school activities such as dances and games, and cultural events. DJs and rap music are a familiar part of youth culture, yet few kids have access to the equipment. Youth Radio is also becoming more visible in the community by promoting discussions on violence and other issues kids want to raise at these neighborhood events. The Street Team concept is easily replicable for a relatively small capital investment, and Youth Radio will disseminate the approach to community organizations as a means to expand their outlets for youth voices while teaching technical skills that may serve in the job market. Youth Radio has adapted its core training program to go "behind bars" to serve incarcerated youth. A growing yet nearly ignored group--40% of African American males in their twenties in California are caught up in some way with the criminal justice system-these youth know the devastation of violence first-hand and have few routes out. Youth Radio classes provide skills training while they are inside, and for those who can, a place to come to as part of their transition back to the outside. A cornerstone of this project is the programming that is produced by the students during their training. KPFA has agreed to broadcast a one hour program produced "live on tape" from Log Cabin Ranch--music, poetry and commentaries produced as the students' graduation show. Material will also be developed for KQED, KYLD, KCBS, KMEL, NPR and other Youth Radio outlets. The hope is that From the Inside Out will produce a small cadre of violence prevention activists who will `testify' to other youth from the perspective of having been there. Youth Radio S C A National Resource for Media Covera¢e and Involvement of Youth Youth Radio is nationally recognized as a leader and resource for journalists and the media in how to recntit, train, and gain access to young people. As an outreach partner with National Public Radio and through Public Radio News Directors Inc., Youth Radio provides technical assistance for news directors from I50 stations aoound the country on how to work with and cover youth. National exposure and recognition have reinforced the initial successes of Youth Radio. To date, the program has produced several awazd-winning commentaries on KQED-FM, has won three national awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and received first prize in Youth Programming from American Women in Radio and Television. Youth Radio is used as a national model by National Public Radio, and continues to advise stations around the country on how to recruit and train teenage producers. Through the Radio TV News Directors Association (RTNDA), Youth Radio is also active in the Civic Journalism Movement, encouraging journalists to improve election coverage by focusing more on the concerns of communities and less on the public relations activities of candidates and their handlers. By strategically targeting news directors through their professional associations, Youth Radio hopes to bring youth issues and voices to the forefront in current debates on journalism and our society. D Nationally-Recognized Staff and Board of Directors Youth Radio has been able to attract some of the most experienced and visionary professionals in public radio. Network level reporters, producers and editors work directly with our teen reporters while preserving the authenticity of both context and content, as conveyed by the young person. Youth Radio's founder and Executive Director, Ellin O7.eary, is a 20-year veteran news producer with numerous broadcast awards, including two Emmys, and was the founding producer at Youth News in 1979. Youth Radio's Board of Directors includes broadcast managers and professionals of national prominence from a range of organizations including the Latin American Youth Center, Latino USA, KQED-FM, Lucasfilm, Ltd., and the Radio and Television New Directors Foundation (RTNDF). Two of our newest Board members are associated with the Community Endowment Fund and the Hearst Foundation.