Playlist: News Station Picks for Feb. '10
Compiled By: PRX Curators
Here are February picks for news stations from PRX News Format Curator Naomi Starobin.
"Hey, let the kids in!
"This month, I'm focusing on pieces by fresh, inspired, younger reporters and producers. Youth Radio. Radio Rookies. UNICEF. Youth Media Project. Many seasoned producers in the public radio system have taken it upon themselves to work with young reporters and give them the tools, skills and (post-squeaky and pre-gravelly) voices. They'll take your listener to places an adult just can't reach. Kudos to them! Have a listen."
Korean BBQ Tacos
From Youth Radio | 02:54
A piece for the listener-foodies, with a youthful take. It's a story about a little niche in L.A. food. It comes from Youth Radio in California, founded in 1990 "on the deeply held belief that underserved youth, ages 14-24 years old, have the creativity, technical skills and entrepreneurial spirit to become leaders in the multi-media industry and the community and to serve as mentors to other youth."
- Playing
- Korean BBQ Tacos
- From
- Youth Radio
Kogi is a Korean BBQ Taco Truck that moves around Los Angeles. Its customers only know where it is going to be parked by checking their website or following them on twitter. This fusion of Korean American and Mexican American food phenomenon could not have happened anywhere else but in Los Angeles. A city filled with people representing all different corners of the globe. This is the place to be for food and culture.
Alfred’s story: Sudanese youth journalist reports on early marriage in Southern Sudan
From UNICEF | Part of the Digital Diarists: Sudanese Youth Voices series | 08:27
The voices of the young Sudanese reporter, 14-year-old Alfred Malish, and the people he interviews will steal your listeners' hearts. The accents are a bit thick, yet understandable. But there is so much there, and it's so refreshing to hear it right from the source. Truth is, it's part commentary and part feature, because in addition to the interviews, Malish poignantly expresses his wish that girls not marry at a young age.
This comes from UNICEF Radio, and includes an intro from a UNICEF host.
Alfred’s story: Youth journalist reports on early marriage in Southern Sudan
As Alfred Malish, now 14, has grown up, he has noticed an alarming thing happening around him: His female classmates are leaving school early to get married.Early marriage still happens with some regularity in Sudan, most often for girls, who are sometimes as young as 12 when they’re married off. Marriage at such an early age can be an obstacle to further education; it can also result in complications should the girl become pregnant before her body is adequately developed.
‘People will not like you’
Alfred became aware of the problem after his friend Stella became pregnant at 15.
"I wanted to go to Senior One [class in school] but I'm pregnant, so I can't go," Stella tells Alfred in an interview he conducted last month as part of a radio story on the problem of child marriage in Southern Sudan.
In a warning to other girls in similar circumstances, Stella recalls being ostracized by her friends and her community.
"People will not like you, no one will be your friend and you'll stay alone," she says, adding: "My sisters, I want to tell you like this. Don't run to marriage. Don't attempt to get married at an early age. Giving birth is very difficult."
Growing Up, Getting By: A Radio Rookies Special
From Radio Rookies | 59:00
A beautifully produced hour by Radio Rookies, from New York Public Radio. Rookies gives teenagers the tools and training "to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world." In it, six stories coming from New York City teens. They are stark yet colorful, eye-opening, personal and universal. And because the stories began 9 years ago, host Marianne McCune is able to follow up and see how these teens have processed their experiences and made it to their 20s.
For 10 years WNYC’s Radio Rookies program has been teaching teenagers to use a microphone and recorder to tell their stories to the world. Their reporting takes listeners inside the most intimate moments of their lives: a 16-year-old confronting her father about his addiction to drugs, a girl giggling with her big sister about an obsessive crush, a high school senior deciding whether to risk his life for revenge. The Rookies make every effort to reach across the boundaries that so often separate adults and teenagers and 'tell it like it is' - but in a way that makes sense to people whose experiences may be nothing like their own. Now, for the first time, Radio Rookies presents an hour-long special, “Growing Up, Getting By”, hosted by WNYC reporter and Radio Rookies founder Marianne McCune. The stories you'll hear are about how teenagers find their way to adulthood and, because many of them first aired years ago, "Growing Up, Getting By" offers a chance to find out what happened next in the Rookies' lives: McCune calls them up or brings them to the studio to ask them to reflect on who they were then ... and who they are now.
http://www.wnyc.org/radiorookies/growingup/index.html
Call Kaari Pitkin if you have questions about the hour or Radio Rookies: 646-829-4483
Anonymous Baby
From Littleglobe | 03:53
A first person, moving account of a teen pregnancy. This comes from the Youth Media Project, which started in 2004, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. YMP "celebrates youth voice through the creation of youth-produced radio programs."
One note: the music bed under the whole thing may not be to your liking. It's appropriate music for the piece, but it may seem out of place in a news magazine.
- Playing
- Anonymous Baby
- From
- Littleglobe
An anonymous high school student from Santa Fe, NM creates a story about the influence of an unplanned pregnancy, the subsequent miscarriage, and the impact of these events on her very young life.
Horned lizards of our nation's Air Force
From Jordan Nelson | 03:32
This story comes from Jordan Nelson, a student at Oklahoma State University. Unlike most of the stories in this month's selections, it's not about himself or his life, but about efforts to protect the Texas Horned Lizard at a local air force base. Nicely reported.
Note: You'll have to cut Nelson's soc out, which is "I'm Jordan Nelson, KOSU news."
- Playing
- Horned lizards of our nation's Air Force
- From
- Jordan Nelson
After Texas Horned Lizards were found to be living at Tinker Air Force base, government biologists and private researchers began to study the animal. Ray Moody, John Krupovage and Vic Bogosian are three of the people who help protect the species of concern on the base. They manage the lizards' habitat, track their movements and advise base officials on how to limit base activities' impact on the habitat. Piece by Jordan Nelson of KOSU in Stillwater, Okla.