Grantee Spotlight: Y-Press and Radio Arte Collaborate on Youth Reporting Project

Y-Press and Radio Arte kicked off a year-long collaborative investigative journalism project with an hour-long session at WBEZ this past Thursday with education reporter Linda Lutton. High school students from youth media groups Y-Press and Radio Arte interviewed Linda about covering Chicago Public Schools and learned interviewing and storytelling tips and techniques.
Lutton told the group that her, “favorite radio pieces explore a little curious piece of a bigger question.” She suggested that they focus on something they find interesting and then investigate it and get kids to talk about it.”

Her advice to the group clearly supports one of the project’s end-products – the creation of an online story content development tool that can help youth-media producers narrow a story idea and find that curious piece of a bigger question. The tool will have national distribution and be marketed by GenPRX, a group designed to support youth radio groups by sharing ideas, strategies and materials online.

In addition through the reporting done in Chicago and Indianapolis, young people from different backgrounds and youth-media experiences are coming together to strengthen each organization’s core journalism. Through topic selection and then narrowing for each city and then by reporting and producing the pieces together, they can learn each organization’s news-gathering process.

Hearing from a seasoned education reporter, Lutton’s briefing grounded the group and provided first-hand experience.

In Chicago, the group is investigating innovations in education and explored the following topics:

o How to engage students in the learning process

o How problem schools have found innovative ways to increase graduation rates

o How to improve hostile learning climates

o How a young person is involved in the choice of his or her school

The young journalists will distribute the stories locally and through PRX, a public media network.

Next week, Radio Arte students will visit their fellow Y-Press reporters in Indianapolis and explore stories about diversity and immigrant communities in the city.

Each group has its own style, but this partnership will investigate new ways to tell stories, share sound-gathering techniques and expertise and produce stories for a wider audience that amplify each others’ cultural experiences and resonate nationally.

*Thank you to Y-Press for contributing to this post.