Listen: Best Youth Stories of 2011. Signal January 2012

January 2012

Best Youth-Made Radio of 2011
GPRX Bullying Stories Project: Meet the Producers
Listen to This: How Sound
This Just In

What’s Next.

Photo: Dyanna

Pundits may be clamoring to discover what’s next, but Generation PRX has always been next generation. So we’re welcoming 2012 by staying true to our roots: highlighting projects that help share storytelling tools, playlists of great audio from young people, and new ways to stay connected with all of you. Find us on Facebook and Twitter, and drop us a line with your handle so we can follow you, too. Amplifying youth voices? That’swhat’s next.

Happy reading & listening,
Jones, GPRX Project Director

Subject Matters

Shayan Ahmad,
Subject Matters

At some point, every producer faces this basic question: You’ve got an idea for a story…now what? Thanks to Indianopolis’ Y-Press, Subject Matters is here to help.

Students at Y-Press decided that – more than technical help or recording tips – the youth radio world could use support in actually creating stories. And instead of a podcast or a manual, they wanted to create interactive videos that speak directly to young producers, pointing out resources, approaches, and examples. Does this sound awesome? It is.

Subject Matters looks at story-making from four perspectives:

Subject & Angle
Research
Questions
Refining the Angle

Have a great idea for a story but don’t know where to go next? Head to Subject Matters

Stations will be programming around these events and subjects. Let us know what you have that fits!

Feb – Black History Month
Feb 14 – Valentine’s Day
Mar – Women’s History Month
Apr – Taxes & the economy
Apr – Earth Day & the environment
Presidential Race

Listen to YouthCast: “To Bet or Not to Bet” from Vincent Geary of Brooklyn College Radio. The perfect place for an exposé on gambling: your own neighborhood.

Best Youth-Made Radio of 2011

Photo: PVCG

One of our favorite January rituals is listening to stories of the past year and selecting which ones will make our annual Best Youth-Made Radio playlist. And with 352 new youth stories added to the PRX catalogue in 2011, we had lots to enjoy! Youth radio is undergoing a renaissance. You heard it here.

GPRX Bullying Stories Project: Meet the Producers

The GBSP Producers

The Generation PRX Bullying Stories Project is full steam ahead. The team of youth producers is hard at work, WNPR’s Catie Talarski is helping guide the stories and (thanks to the Motorola Mobility Empowerment Foundation) each group is enjoying a new recording kit (including a Sony PCM-M10 recorder and an RE-50 mic, for the tech-curious among you) and Hindenburg Journalist audio editing software. Learn more about the team and their story topics over on the GPRX blog.

We’re super delighted to work with all of these talented producers, and to share youth voices on bullying with the entire PRX network in an hour-long special coming in February.

Listen to This: How Sound

Ian Kathan

We were already big fans of the How Sound podcast, which dives deep into radio stories to give listeners the backstory. But this latest episode is a must-listen for the youth radio crowd: Producer Ian Kathan talks about producing his story on living with Aspergers for his high school class…and getting a standing ovation. WHJE Radio teacher Brian Spilbeler and GPRX Director Jones Franzel weigh in. Subscribed?

This Just In

Tools for teachers! The youth media blog from the Institute for Contemporary Art includes lesson plans on Writing Radio Commentaries from ZUMIX’s Elena Botkin-Levy and Connecting Youth Media to Audience from GPRX’s Jones Franzel.
Have you found us on Facebook and Twitter? Have you sent us your handle so we can find you? #youthradioisthebest
A/V Candy! We love this list from AIR of the 11 Most Intriguing Transmedia Projects of the Year. Warning: you may enjoy this so much you lose track of time.

Generation PRX