This summer we started taking the ferry to Staten Island to work with 8 new Radio Rookies. We're partnering with the Seamen's Society for Children and Families. The Rookies will be reporting stories on everything from online bullying to life in the foster care system to being in a teenage rock band. Learn more and stay tuned for the rest of their stories in 2011.
Interview With a Teenage Vampire
Just when you think the vampire craze might have run its course, a new book hits the stores or another TV show launches. Next week the latest Twilight movie opens nationwide, HBO's True Blood just started its third season, and fans of the undead keep wanting more. Rookie Reporter Hawa Lee reports on the sometimes spooky connection between vampires and teenagers.
Radio Rookie Alexis Gordon's dad could've retired from the Army Reserves but chose not to. He was recently deployed to Afghanistan and Alexis is struggling with his decision to go back to the Middle East.
In the fall of 2009 we began a workshop with 8 new Radio Rookies in partnership with the Flushing YMCA. The Rookies are reporting stories about everything from gangs in schools to online girl gamers. Learn more and stay tuned for the rest of their stories in the fall of 2010.
Radio Rookies Short Wave Mapping Main Street
Short Wave rookies embark on a mapping project to tell stories related to the Main Street in Queens, NY, as part of an ambitious project to map all the Main Streets in the United States. In the fall of 2009 the rookies collaborated with the mappingmainstreet.org project in a 5-week long intensive workshop, hosted by the Queens Teens program at the Queens Museum of Art. The students worked in groups reporting, taking photos, developing their stories, and above all working as a team to tell stories ranging from the cultural conversations of Main Street to steamed buns. View and listen here.
Radio Rookies Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary
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. The Rookies make every effort to reach across the boundaries that often separate adults and teenagers and "tell it like it is." Visit the "Growing Up, Getting By," page to hear the Radio Rookies hour-long special.
Where Are They Now: Checking in with 10 years of Radio Rookies
Jesus Gonzalez and Jose Lopez were in one of the earliest Rookies workshops, in 2001. At the time, they were working as youth organizers at the community group Make the Road New York in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Almost a decade has passed and they're still there. But their group has grown to more than 70 young members. Listen here.
Jordan Teklay was the first teenager to ever come to the program with a passion for radio already instilled. In fact, Jordan loved radio so much, at 15 he became legally emancipated from his parents and moved on his own from California to New York to try to make it as the next shock jock. He finished his Radio Rookies story three years ago and since then he’s been doing everything possible to get back on the air, like spending hours refining and sending out audition tapes. Listen here.
Often the Radio Rookies program sparks an interest in broadcast journalism. For former Rookie Linda Lee, it confirmed her dream of becoming a TV news anchor—just like her hero at the time, WPIX’s Kaity Tong. Linda has since graduated from college and IS working in TV news, just not in front of the camera. Listen here.
Samr "Rocky" Tayeh, who first went on the radio in 2003 to report on his life as an obese teenager. Since then, Rocky had weight loss surgery and dropped 300 pounds. Now he's trying out some of the things that were impossible for someone so overweight, like learning how to ride a bike. Listen here.
Samr “Rocky” Tayeh before and after his surgery.
Radio Rookies Wins Two Journalism Awards
On Tuesday, October 27th in Washington, D.C. the Radio Rookies series In The System, stories by young people in foster care, won the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism and the inaugural America's Promise Alliance Journalism Award, inspired by the late Tim Russert, an Alliance board member. The judges said the series is "emblematic of superb radio journalism. To give voice to these teen reporters is to give voice to the thousands of other kids who find themselves in that very same system." You can listen to these award-winning Rookies stories here.
Bronx 2009 Broadcast Workshop A Week of Radio Rookies on Morning Edition
The newest series of Rookies stories comes from the Bronx and will air the week of October 5th, 2009 during Morning Edition on WNYC and are available for download here. For this workshop we partnered with the Next Generation Center in the Morrisania area of the Bronx. These stories take us into the lives of teenagers grappling with poverty, exploring the effects of the Chernobyl disaster, questioning what happens when their parents have been incarcerated, and struggling with a mother who has a debilitating disease. Listen here.
Brooklyn Broadcast Workshop
December 2008 during Morning Edition
The broadcast Radio Rookies Brooklyn workshop was held in partnership with the High School for Global Citizenship (HSGC) in Crown Heights. The newest Rookies stories explored why parents work so much, child abuse, literacy, not reaching one's potential, and being different. Listen here. more
Brooklyn Rookies: Behind the Scenes Audio Slideshow
Radio Rookies is an award-winning WNYC program that trains young people to use words and sounds to tell true stories about themselves, their communities and the world. Through a series of workshops, each held in a different neighborhood, Radio Rookies gives teenagers the tools to become radio journalists. What is Radio Rookies?
Click on the map of New York City to hear Radio Rookies stories from different neighborhoods.
Funding
Radio Rookies is supported by Adobe Foundation, Axe-Houghton Foundation, Rose M. Badgeley Residuary Charitable Trust, Bay and Paul Foundations, Fred Emerson Foundation, Geraldine Stutz Trust, Inc., Margaret Neubart Foundation, Marilyn and Bob Laurie Foundation, McCormick Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Robert and Jean L. Stern Foundation, Robert Bowne Foundation, Slomo and Cindy Silvian Foundation, W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
