Youth Radio: Kids Not Seen But Heard Working

It’s 6:30 on a Friday night, and KPFB Radio's weekly show, "Youth in Control," is 30 minutes from air time.

Inside a converted storefront on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, just a few blocks from the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, 20 youths are finishing up their news reports, commentaries or song introductions. One of the designated commentators sits in front of a blank computer screen, alternately biting her nails and burying her face in her hands.

In the station's production studio. three teenagers are taping a public service announcement about a food drive for upcoming Indigenous People's Day, Berkeley's answer to Columbus Day. A DJ is waiting to time the five rap and R & B tunes he plans to play during his 30 minutes of airtime. Half-eaten pieces of veggie pizza, empty soda cans and cut-up newspapers litter the work tables.

Suddenly, Wilma Consul, who's supervising the news and commentary writers, calls out: "Eight more minutes, guys. Keep writing. You can do it."

This is Youth Radio, one of the grandest experiments in youth empowerment that American radio has ever seen.

Why radio? "Because radio is a core medium," says Ellin 0'Leary, the organization's executive director, "and this generation probably listens to radio more than any previous one."

Founded as Youth News in 1979 by Louis Freedberg, a South African anthropologist who was doing field work at Berkeley High School. Youth Radio has evolved into a sophisticated multi-cultural broadcast training, media advocacy and violence prevention program. Although there are many efforts around the country to put more youth voices on the public airwaves. Youth Radio is widely regarded as the best.

Several of the program's graduates already are finding jobs that enable them to keep making their mark on the airwaves. But what really impresses program officials are the number of youths perhaps a hundred or more— who have made genuine progress as writers.

Neighborhood Outreach

The core program provides 12 weeks of intensive, hands-on training in radio production and broadcast Journalism. showcased in the live, two-hour show every Friday night. The program's motto: "We are taking over the airwaves with our minds and the music of our generation."

Other Youth Radio activities include supplying news features and commentaries to both commercial and public radio stations, including KYLD-FM (WILD 107.7), one of the Bay area's most popular radio stations, and National Public Radio, with its 546 member stations and 13 million listeners.

Since 1995, a three-year grant of $500,000 from the California Wellness Foundation has enabled Youth Radio to begin training young people elsewhere in California about using the media to deliver anti-violence messages. Few youth groups have access to a broadcast signal. So Youth Radio has come up with the concept of "community action street teams" —mobile DJs who demonstrate in simulated broadcast booths how they work on the air. Such demos at fairs and other community events always include a pro-youth message.

Among the program's other new out-reach efforts is a radio production training program at Log Cabin Ranch, a detention center operated by San Francisco Juvenile Hall. It's kind of a portable version of Youth Radio.

"Many of the kids might not even be here if programs such as Youth Radio had been available to them in their past," says Fred E. Jordan Jr., former chief probation officer for the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department.

A hallmark of Youth Radio is its emphasis on "youth training youth" — using "graduates" of Youth Radio as peer teachers. "From the beginning, the kids have seen giving back as part of the deal," said O'Leary.

The peer teaching concept also helps solve one of Youth Radio's most vexing problems: what to offer youths who complete the 12 week program but don't want to go back to just hanging out on street comers on Friday nights. "We tell them now that once they're in the program, our door is always open to them," O'Leary said. Advanced classes and the "street team" offer other opportunities for continued participation.\

Pacifica to the Rescue

The vibrancy of Youth Radio today makes it easy to forget the lean years of Youth-News, its predecessor. In 1989, an earthquake wrecked the building in Oakland that housed Youth News. "By 1990, there were no adults around any more, and it was like Lord of the Flies." says O'Leary.

O'Leary, 44, had been involved with Youth News on and off since its beginning, while building a career at the Bay area's largest commercial station. KQED, its public radio station. KPFA, and NPR. In 1990, Freedberg, by then a journalist, asked her to come back on board Youth News to try to save it. She was shocked by what she found.

"Because of what had been happening in the schools, the literacy skills of the kids were 100 times worse than they had been in 1979, when they were already shocking," she said. "On the other hand, their technical proficiency was much better."

0'Leary was surprised to find little interest among '90s teens in reporting news or writing commentaries, the strength of the old Youth News operation. "The wannabe Barbara Walters were no longer around," she said.

Everyone wanted to be a DJ, or learn to use the production equipment. "The music and the technical stuff became the hooks to get them interested in news and commentary," she said. O'Leary forged a partnership with KECG. The radio station at El Cerrito High School. As word got around the Bay Area. Teens from other school districts started showing up. "There was, this whole group of kids who were realty hungry for a media outlet," she said. There were all these stories about their lives that were going undone."

Then, in 1991, the Richmond School District shut down KECG when it declared bankruptcy. Serendipitously, KPFA, 94.1 FM, the Berkeley based public radio station, was about to move into a new office and had space to rent. Furthermore, it had a "repeater signal." KPFB, 89.3 FM, which it was willing to let Youth Radio use on Friday nights.

David Salniker, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which operates the station, and Pat Scott, then KPFA's general manager, told O'Leary, "If you can raise the money, it's all yours," she recalls. "It was clear that I needed a" place where the kids could have their own show. The commentaries were nice, but they needed music, too. So they could appeal to their own age group. The thing would have died at that moment except for Pacifica's offer."

But the prospect of raising enough money to begin operating was daunting. "I had never raised a dime in my life," O’Leary said. She wrote her first grant application to the San Francisco Foundation, which two years before had provided $25,000 to revive Youth News. Impressed by her plan to incorporate professional-directed technical training into the program, the foundation came through with another $25,000.

Youth Radio went on the air in July 1992. But between rent payments and equipment purchases, the seed money "ran out pretty quickly." O'Leary said. "We went through a period where we basically had no money. KPFA let the rent float for three months, and I didn't take a salary for a long time."

Meanwhile, KPFA lent Youth Radio its grant writer, Greg Lassonde. In January 1993, the Walter S. Johnson and Irvine foundations each promised $70,000 over two years. O’Leary credits not just the power of the concept and Lassonde's writing skills, but the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 sparked by the jury's not-guilty verdict in the criminal trial of the police officers charged with beating Rodney King in 1991.

Since then, additional financial support has come from more than a dozen other foundations, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. More recently, O’Leary has been talking with potential corporate backers. "You can't just stick with foundations," she says. “It’s critical to diversify and find corporate sponsors. Commercial radio is very supportive of this kind of effort, either because they already serve a youth market or they're looking into diversifying programs.”

Applicants Aplenty

The typical participant in Youth Radio has no idea where its support comes from, or its subliminal purpose — "to engage young people in something positive, as an alternative to street life," in O’Leary’s words.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the program is its diversity. The core program serves about 100 youth annually, most of whom fall into the category of "at risk." Eighty-two percent come from low-income families. Eighty percent are non-Caucasian, and a quarter are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Just over half are female.

"The mix is the, real world, and here, it works," says O’Leary. There arc divisions in their schools and their neighborhoods that they can't cross, but here they do. They have to, because it's set up that way. And they actually seem relieved that they no longer have to stay in their camps. It's kind of like a safe house."

As word of the program has spread. Interest from youth has soared. There are three applicants for every spot in the program. "We get plenty of applications from kids who are really focused and know what they want to do, but we like to save some room for those who aren't," O'Leary says.

On the Air!

It took two tries for Geovanny Claris, 15, a sophomore at Berkeley High School, to get into the program. On the first live broadcast of last fall's class, Geovanny drew an unenviable spot — serving as DJ during the opening half-hour of music. But Geovanny didn't show any signs of nervousness as he went into the studio to broadcast live. "I'm just going to be myself and play music I know lots, of different people will like — Spanish, rhythm and blues, and dance," he said.

Halfway through Geovanny's musical offerings. Shawnelle Gibbs came on the air with her commentary on the pressure on adolescent girls to be skinny. “So many young girls lie on their deathbeds as I speak, with tubes down their throats. Just because they wanted to be beautiful like the models in the fashion magazines," she said.

At 7:30 p.m., another DJ took over, this one a rap devotee, and then came the public service announcement on the food drive. News followed, chosen by the designated news reporters and re written from local newspaper stories: development of a new Internet system, the arrest of a San Francisco police officer for stalking his former wife, and Colin Powel’s apology to Asian-Americans for using the term "Chinaman."

Seven minutes before the second hour, it was time for another commentary, this one from Aren Minter, a sophomore at Berkeley High School, on the hypocrisy of politicians. "Republicans like to claim that they're tough on crime," he said on the air. "But all they're really tough on are the citizens they're supposed to represent." The top news story at 8:30 p.m. drew laughs from the assembled youths. Worms had been found in a Rocky Road candy bar just a few weeks before Halloween. Every one of that night's DJs, news readers and commentators had a different style, from the tentative, high-pitched voice of Renee Cole. A shy 14-year-old who sang along as she played Selena's hit song. "Dreaming of You," to the totally self-assured voice of Chanpory Ruth, 16, who delivered an angry commentary about adult discrimination against teens.

"As a teenager, I face age discrimination every day," he said. "I am forced to pay adult prices at the theater, yet I cannot legally view 'R'-rated movies because ‘this film may contain mature subject matter,’ in the supermarket, undercover cops follow me, thinking I will steal something. At school, teachers make me wonder if I am still 9 years old with their condescending tones and their patronization."

At the end of the show, Wilma Consul, the adult who was overseeing the program, gathered everybody together to critique it. The consensus was that except for a few bloopers, everybody did pretty well, especially since it was their first time. Even the girl who had burst into tears moments before going on the air had delivered her commentary flawlessly. One of the youths said, "I think we should give ourselves a hand." Everybody applauded.

Moving to Paying Work

Whether any of these youths go on to careers in broadcast journalism isn't the yardstick by which Youth Radio plans to measure its success. "In five years, I don't think there have been 10 kids who came here for the news. but probably 100 have left here being-more interested in writing," 0'Leary says. "We help them discover that it's nothing to be afraid of, and they end up actually liking it."

But O'Leary can't help but beam when she talks about the Youth Radio graduates who seem destined to make their mark on radio. Ayoka Batini Medlock, 21, of Richmond, won awards from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for a radio piece on "My Life as a Teenage Mother," an account of her efforts to help her mother raise an older sister's children.

Medlock recently completed an internship with NPR, and now works for Youth Radio as cultural and entertainment producer. Among her responsibilities is contributing weekly profiles of entertainers to WILD 107.7. "I got involved with Youth Radio because I didn't really have anything else to do," Medlock says. "It taught me that there's a lot more to radio than just sitting in a studio and playing music." Her Youth Radio experience also helped give her the self-confidence to turn a hobby — rap music — into an income-producing business. She and three friends have formed a management, promotion and public relations company for rhythm-and-blues groups, which they call Black Pearl.

Jacinda Abcarian, 22, of Berkeley, was a self-described "goof-off in high school, working part-time at a Sizzler Steakhouse. When she heard about Youth Radio. She was attracted to the idea of playing her favorite music on the air, but she soon got hooked on news and commentary writing.

"I thought it was fun to report on things that people needed to know about, but weren't being covered on mainstream radio or TV," she said. "I thought I could show some of the positive things that youth were doing." Abcarian served as a peer teacher for three years and now has a salaried Job at Youth Radio co-hosting its Sunday morning show on WILD107.7 and producing features on issues of interest to youth, such as vegetarianism and laws requiring parental consent for abortions.'

This article originally appeared in Youth Today in the January/February 1997 issue.  It is reprinted here with permission.