Station Showcase with PRX

“There may not be enough resources dedicated to getting the word out about seed money or any other kind of assistance, financial or technical.”
-WILL News Director Tom Rogers

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. For almost two years now, we’ve traveled together on this weekly podcast to the hundreds of different public radio stations across the country, listening to the excellent, original work being produced for local audiences across the US. And this week, on what will be the final podcast in the Station Showcase series, it’s my pleasure to share a report from WILL in Urbana, Illinois. WILL News Director Tom Rogers set out to learn about the challenges facing rural entrepreneurs, and about what kind of help they might be able to expect from the next President of the United States. Here’s more from Tom…

Your story takes us into the small, quiet town of Homer, Illinois, where local businesses are struggling because so there are so few customers there… any idea what’s caused the town’s population to shrink so precipitously?

Homer hasn’t shrunk any faster than most other small rural towns, but the nature of its employment base has changed significantly. Nearby farmers have bypassed smaller towns in favor of bigger towns with bigger, cheaper stores with more variety. There are fewer and fewer farmers to begin with, so the out-of-town customer base has been going away. And even among residents in the towns, more mobility means more attraction to those bigger retail draws in cities the size of Danville or Champaign. It’s not a new phenomenon at all.

Are there indications that people are moving back into these sorts of small towns from bigger cities and suburbs?

Towns closer to bigger work centers are seeing more people move in, but Homer is a bit too far from those population centers to be considered a “bedroom community.” For some people, the rise of broadband, telecommuting and the home office have tempted them to the cheaper real estate of small towns. But that’s a phenomenon that’s still in the early stages. It’s also hard to tell what rising fuel prices may do to the allure of living far away from it all.

You mention that Obama has promised to provide see money for rural business and McCain has promised to lower business taxes… did you get any sense from the small-town entrepreneurs you met about which presidential candidate they’re favoring at this point?

Almost to a person, my interviewees hadn’t really matched the Presidential campaigns with their fortunes as entrepreneurs. Some have their preferences, but not based solely on their stances on rural or business issues. They also expressed some skepticism about what the candidates — or the federal government in general — can do to help them out in an effective way.

You bring up an interesting point about the problem of connecting entrepreneurs with the funds that are (or will be) available to them to foster their businesses… any thoughts on how that situation might improve?

Everyone I talked to said they would have considered that kind of assistance if they had 1) heard about it in the first place, and 2) been assured it wouldn’t be a bureaucratic hassle. Lack of communication was a key concern, and rural affairs expert Stephan Goetz touched on the problem — there may not be enough resources dedicated to getting the word out about seed money or any other kind of assistance, financial or technical.

Tell us a bit about your radio background, WILL, and the sort of work you do there…

I oversee a three-person staff at WILL, one of the few public radio member stations with an AM frequency. WILL was one of the first university-run radio stations in the country, and it can lay claim to some of the earliest roots of public broadcasting. As a news director in a small shop, I spend about as much time on the air and in the field as I do on managerial duties. I’ve been in public radio for more than ten years after about as long in commercial radio, and I’ve never looked back.

You can hear more stories from PRX’s Rural Issues election series online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the country – and around the world – share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“I didn’t just walk up out of the blue. That would have been insane.”
-KWMU reporter Adam Allington

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast, we tour the fifty states and tune in to the excellent work being done by producers at local public radio stations across the country. This week, our travels take us to KWMU in Saint Louis, Missouri, where reporter Adam Allington has spent the past six months getting to know some of the youngest and most violent criminals on the city streets. Adam has distilled his conversations and experiences into a provocative three-part radio series called “Block by Block: Street Gangs in Saint Louis.” Here’s more from Adam…

What brought you to Saint Louis, and how’d you end up hanging out on corners with gang members?

I came to St. Louis in 2006 to work as a general assignment reporter for KWMU Public Radio. Prior to the move I had heard a lot about the city’s reputation as a “Murder Capitol.” Once I got here I saw very quickly that most of the crime was confined to a relatively small portion of the city’s north side. In these neighborhoods the situation is pretty harsh. On any particular block more than half the homes are likely to be condemned, crime is very high and the schools are horrible. People are afraid to leave to homes.
I guess I just started poking around these neighborhoods more and more covering different stories….the gang issue in particular seemed hard to cover. We tend not to cover individual murders and shootings. Likewise, the issue seemed too complex to distill into one feature. So, right away I started thinking about some kind of series.
It took over 6 months to put together.

How do the guys react when you show up on their corner with a microphone?

Well, I didn’t just walk up out of the blue. That would have been insane. Instead, I connected with a guy who I know that runs a hip-hop production company. He’s from the neighborhood and knows a lot of these guys, so we approached them together.
Once he vouched for me, people were very open and honest. They seemed happy to really connect the dots and lay it all out. It was interesting because on the one hand many of these guys admit to committing any number of really horrific crimes and putting up a real hardcore front. At the same time, many of them are so young they have this aura of schoolboy innocence. You kind of just want to put your arm around them tell them to think about the big picture…but coming from a lily-white reporter guy with a microphone that seemed like a silly impulse.

It was fascinating to hear about how the success of the police has in part created the current gang problem (with the big, older gangs gone, it created a power vacuum and now smaller gangs are operating block by block)… what’s the police strategy now?

Since the gang problem has become so wrapped up in high schools and teen culture, the cops have really had to beef up their presence in and around schools…particularly at sporting events. People are not allowed to show up at games in groups or wear gang colors. They also monitor MySpace and Facebook pages for information.
If one particular gang starts causing a lot of problems, sometimes the cops will just bring down as much grief down them as they can—to send a message. Things like just arresting anyone they see on the block, pinching them for small infractions, impounding their cars. It’s kind of a respect thing like, “we’ll tolerate your existence as long as you play by certain rules.”
They’ll also do things like implement a curfew, and saturate certain target neighborhoods with beat cops, undercover, the gang unit. This might work at keeping people from killing each other for a few days, but it turns the neighborhood into a police state and long term it does not seem to have much of an affect.

It was interesting to listen to the older gang member talking about how scared he is of the younger kids out on the corners these days… were gangsters really less volatile and violent in the past, do you think, or is this a case of an older guy saying, “Back in MY day…”?

That’s a good question and something I wrestled with. I think there’s a little bit of a “back in my day” thing. Like the OG’s really emphasized the love that they had with their fellow gangbangers and how the whole point was to make money, not shoot at each other.
I think it really is more violent now. There are so many more gangs operating in a confined area so it’s easier for beef to start. And, from talking to the younger guys, many freely admit that it’s a reputation thing. People will try to make a name for themselves by taking someone out. I think that a generation ago there was more a of a crime hierarchy that kept that kind of thing in check. People were not allowed to stir up trouble simply because they wanted to be more popular in school or on the block.

As you point out at the end of your story, the real crux of the problem is that the lure of gang culture just more powerful than any other alternative for these kids… have you talked with anyone who’s got ideas on how that might change, if ever?

I really wish I could have addressed this a little bit more in my series. We got some response from listeners who said the whole project just made them depressed. The easy response, or theory, is that the gang issues will not improve until North St. Louis achieves more socio-economic parity with the rest of the city. I think that is true to a point. Many of the people I spoke with emphasized that progress can be made in a lot of different ways, little by little.
I think that if more resources were poured into schools that would be a huge factor. The cops claim that they are able to respond in kind as the gang problem evolves. I think their “boots on the ground” approach is effective in specific situations.
The population of the city is starting to bounce back after years of decline. Development seems to be coming to several fringe neighborhoods. I think that, more than anything offers a glimmer of hope. Perhaps once people start moving back into some of these cool old neighborhoods the gang issue will start to subside.

You can hear the complete three-part series “Block by Block: Street Gangs in Saint Louis” from KWMU’s Adam Allington online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at: www.prx.org. (By the way, I wanted to let you know that The NPR Station Showcase with PRX is coming up soon on its final podcast. That’ll be the week of Wednesday, September 24th. Check out the PRX homepage for other great podcasts, and keep your ears out for more great material still to come.)

“For the artists, $50 was an amazing payout, until they realized someone else was making a great deal more money off their art.”
-Tanya Ott

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin, and each week on this podcast we travel the fifty states and shine a light on the outstanding work being produced at local public radio stations around the country. This week we tune in to WBHM in Alabama, where News Director Tanya Ott recently sat down with one of the region’s now-famous folk artists – Gees Bend quilter Tinnie Pettway. The work of the Gees Bend quilters has been astounding museum goers across the country (and causing a good bit of controversy along the way). Here’s more from Tanya…

The traveling exhibition of these Gees Bend quilts has made a splash in museums all across the country… just how big a story are these quilters down in their home-town state of Alabama?

My sense is that many Alabamians know about the quilters, but that their story tends to get lost in the mix a bit. Folks know about their work and may know it is getting attention outside Alabama, but many Alabamians know little about the quilting and the quilters themselves.

During your conversation with Tinnie Pettway, you guys touch on a controversy surrounding the Gees Bend quilts: Some of Ms. Pettway’s fellow quilters feel they’ve been exploited and taken advantage of by unscrupulous art collectors. Help us understand a bit about what’s fueling that ill will…

It’s the story of many folk artists in the rural south. Collectors and curators from up north would come down to the rural south and offer artisans $50 or $75 for a quilt or other piece of art, then turn around and sell it for $1,000 or more in galleries up north. For the artists $50 was an amazing payout, until they realized someone else was making a great deal more money off their art.

In your estimation, are the majority of the quilters pleased or dismayed about the artistic ‘discovery’ of their quilts and what’s happened since?

I suspect most are content with the situation, but you can learn more about the lawsuit at this blog http://blackthreads.blogspot.com/2007/06/gees-bend-quilter-annie-mae-young-files.html. A good site for information on the quilters themselves is
http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/

Does Tinnie Pettway continue to make quilts nowadays? Is she now selling (and pricing) them as art objects instead of functional items?

She does still make quilts, though not as many. And yes, her prices have gone up.

Ms. Pettway was very generous and diplomatic in her description of what it was like leave her home town and fly up to Boston to meet with the elite of the American art world… what to you think she really must have thought about that strange encounter?

It’s hard to say, but I suspect it was a completely alien environment for her. Like many rural Alabama towns, Gee’s Bend is a very homogeneous community. Before the quilters came to fame, most residents of Gee’s Bend hadn’t traveled much and there weren’t many tourists or visitors coming to Gee’s Bend. Pettway’s trip to Boston introduced her not only to new foods, but new cultures and perspectives on the world.

You can hear more from Tanya Ott and WBHM online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“2,000 Mainers make their living digging in muddy tidal flats for flesh biting monster worms. People in the know said I should talk to a guy named Werner — he’d been worming for like a million years.”
-Producer Zachary Barr

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m your host and curator Aaron Henkin, and each week on this podcast we give a little extra attention to the outstanding and original work that’s getting produced locally at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. Zachary Barr is our featured producer this week – he’s currently working at Colorado Public Radio, but a few years ago when he was up in Maine, he happened across a guy with a really cool job… Werner Rhode has been digging for worms on the tidal mud flats of mid-coastal Maine for 30 years. When the tide goes out in the summertime, Werner wanders out into the mudflats early in the morning with his hoe, hip boots, and bucket. Zac tagged along one morning with a portable recording kit (and a borrowed pair of hip waders)…

How’d you come across Werner the Wormer?

Oh, man this is a long story. I’ll try and make it brief. I was studying at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. Radio students produce two features while at Salt. My first story was about Hondurans processing sea cucumbers for the Chinese, and the second was a love story about a Russian mail order bride and her local husband. The mail order bride couple had second thoughts, so I had to scramble to find a new story. Bloodworming sounded interesting: 2,000 Mainers make their living digging in muddy tidal flats for flesh biting monster worms. People in the know said I should talk to a guy named Werner — he’d been worming for like a million years.

What was it about his story and his career that spoke to you?

Honestly, I was scrambling and recorded the first person who agreed to talk to me. He’d just gotten back to Maine from out of state and was living in bachelor pad apartment not far from the tidal flats. Turns out, he’d just been divorced by his Russian mail order bride. No lie!

What kind of an experience was it for you to go out worm-digging with him? Were you following him out into the tide with your audio recorder, wearing hip-waders?

Yeah, he lent me an outfit. The mud was…muddy. You got out worming when the tide is out, which on this day meant getting outside before dawn.

Any favorite memory that’s stuck with you from that day you spent with Werner?

Wormers are defined by how many worms you snag a tide and whether you dig one tide a day or two. Imagine going out for two tides a day — it’s two work shifts a day, beginning exactly twelve hours apart.

Were you tempted to try a career change after meeting Werner?

Of course! I’m your typical grouchy office type who wishes he was a blood worming farmer.

Tell us a little bit about your radio background and how you ended up at Colorado Public Radio, KCFR…

After going to Salt, I worked at Sound Portraits / StoryCorps in New York. My first day on the job at StoryCorps, I met my new boss and future wife. She’s really pretty and smart. At StoryCorps I was a facilitator in Grand Central and then managed one of the Airstreams that tours around the country. I also worked on a freelance project called Never Coming Home with the amazing photographer Andrew Lichtenstein. The project was about the families of American soldiers killed in Iraq. There’s a book, and you can see pieces online at Slate and MediaStorm.

What kind of work are you doing at KCFR these days?

I help make a daily news interview show called Colorado Matters. I also get out and report features.

You can hear more from Zachary Barr and Colorado Public radio online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where reporters and producers from around share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“The Obama campaign is mobilizing a strong grassroots effort in rural parts of Ohio and other Midwestern states. It seems his strategists learned from John Kerry’s 2004 campaign where rural areas were mostly ignored.”
-WKSU Reporter Kevin Niedermier

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Hi, this is Aaron Henkin, your host and curator for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast we spotlight the outstanding work that’s being produced at local public radio stations across the country, and this week we tune in for an insightful political report by WKSU’s Kevin Niedermier. This week, Senator Barack Obama’s political star is of course shining bright at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, but across the country in rural areas, voters are taking his presidential candidacy with a grain of salt. As you’ll hear in Kevin’s report, a lot of small-town voters across Ohio are yet to be convinced that Obama’s candidacy is worth supporting. Here’s more from Kevin…

You got quite an earful from rural Ohio voters during the making of this story! It sounds like folks are skeptical about everything from Obama’s sincerity, to his experience, to his color. I wonder, what surprised you most about what you heard during your conversations in Bolivar and Strasburg?

The biggest surprise for me was the number of undecided voters. With the exception of the barber and his customer, who both plan to cast ballots for John McCain, the majority of people I spoke with were still waiting to decide. Some said it would depend on vice presidential choices, others wanted to hear more from both candidates.

I could literally hear tension in the air in that barbershop in Strasburg as the man voiced his racial misgivings about Obama… was that a weird moment for you as a reporter?

It didn’t feel weird as much as it was surprising he would admit his feelings in front of an open microphone. The tension actually wasn’t too high. He happily posed for a picture afterwards and was eager to know when he was going to be on the radio. I did get an angry phone call from the barber’s daughter who accused me of goading her dad into making his comment to make a sensational story. His comment drew a lot of negative reaction in their small town.

What do you think people in urban areas and on the coasts understand the least about the mind of the mythical ‘Midwestern rural voter’?

…That most rural voters are ignorant of the issues and spend most of their time shooting guns and drinking beer. Most of the people I spoke were well informed and closely following the campaigns.

Does it seem likely that Obama will try to spend time and energy in these areas, reaching out to voters, or is he going to chalk up his losses and concentrate his efforts elsewhere?

The Obama campaign is mobilizing a strong grassroots effort in rural parts of Ohio and other Midwestern states. It seems his strategists learned from John Kerry’s 2004 campaign where rural areas were mostly ignored. Kerry lost Ohio to George W. Bush by a slim margin, and many people blame the lack of rural campaigning.

I suspect you’ll be busy reporting during the months ahead, as the presidential campaign puts Ohio on the map… what’s on the political calendar there? Any more big campaign stops coming up soon in your area?

I’m going to Denver to follow the Ohio delegation at the DNC. Our news director is covering the RNC. And if 2000 AND 2004 are any indication, we will be busy covering plenty of campaign stops in Northeast Ohio between now and November.

Is political reporting your bailiwick? What other sort of work do you do at WKSU?

We have a small news staff and nobody has a true beat. We’re all general assignment reporters. I run our one-person Cleveland bureau, and fill in as anchor when needed.

You can hear more reports from Kevin and WKSU online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where reporters and producers from around share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“Even if your garden only yields one tomato… I think the attempt to actually do something about your situation says a lot.”
-WRVO Reporter/Producer Jasmyn Belcher

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin. What’s the Station Showcase all about, you ask? Basically, we make it our mission here each week to shine a light on the excellent work being produced locally at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. This week, our search takes us to WRVO in Syracuse, New York. That’s where the talented Jasmyn Belcher has been working for the past year as a news reporter and producer. Jasmyn recently put together a story about a new initiative from the Food Bank of Central New York: it’s a program that encourages needy families to cut down on grocery bills by growing their own food. As you’ll hear… even just one homegrown tomato plant in a bucket can make a difference.

First off, I wanted to give you my compliments on this piece… It’s got everything: Great opening sentence, really nice structure, wonderful scenes and interviews! Tell us a bit about your radio background and the sort of work you do for WRVO…

First off…thank you! As for my radio background, I was hired at WRVO last year as a News Reporter/Producer. Being that I still have day to day responsibilities, including interviews and spot news… getting out in the field, capturing sound and putting it all together is very exciting. Features are my favorite. Letting stories almost tell themselves with interesting sound is really fun for me. I’ve had some great opportunities that have helped shape my career so far. In college, I interned with a community radio station in London, England where I learned a lot on the production side. After that experience, I knew I belonged in public radio. I also received a scholarship from NPR to attend their 2008 regional fly-in, in Boston. NPR’s Robert Smith gave me the best advice, and it really got me thinking about how I want to produce feature reports. I have never learned so much, about so many things, in so little time! The very first feature I ever produced was on goat’s milk…it won a few awards this year and I think I’ve come a long way since then!

It seems like the ‘garden-in-a-bucket’ is a project that comes with maybe a small economic benefit, but a really big social dividend… there’s a real sense of independence and empowerment seems to go along with this idea. What do you think appeals most to people about it?

I think high fuel and energy costs have people thinking, and anything that may help ease the burden is intriguing. Whether it is an actual garden, a bucket garden, or anything else… I think the act of doing something yourself is encouraging. Even if we don’t have the means to change what is going on with our food source…we can at least feel like we are doing something about it.

How practical is it, do you think, for most of us to grow enough food to actually make a real dent in our grocery bills? Is it really realistic to put in that much time and energy for the return?

I think the program was more about the idea of taking control, especially for people who may not be able to afford fresh produce. The Food Bank is showing people they have options. Even if your garden only yields one tomato…I think the attempt to actually do something about your situation says a lot. The time and energy you put in…is a reflection of what is to come. I mean, if your grocery bills are too high, why not try growing food for free? Not to mention the other benefits, like knowing where your food comes from!

That was a truly inspired moment in your story when you gave that random stranger your garden-in-a-bucket! What was that exchange like for you and him?

After researching this program and getting all of the facts and other voices ..he was the last person I spoke with. It was really nice to have seen the entire process…from planting the buckets to dropping a plant off to a family. I think this is an inspired program, and I just tried to show that in my story. I’m glad it worked!

What’s next on the horizon for you? Have you got any other good stories in the works at the moment?

As of right now, it seems as though rising costs are taking a toll on just about everyone. I just finished a feature on high gas prices and touring musicians. I think it is sort of in the same vein as the food bank story…these musicians are being proactive and making choices in order to continue doing what they love. About a month ago, I did a story on a local drive-in movie theatre in Central New York. That has to be my favorite piece so far. It was really just a lot of fun. I love the nostalgia of the 1950′s…the music…the movies…everything. So I just jumped right into the story, thrilled to even have the opportunity. If people continue doing so many interesting things, I’ll try my best to get the word out!

You can hear more from Jasmyn Belcher and WRVO online at the Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org

“It seems that the technology was truly forgotten and people still haven’t rediscovered it.”
- Megan Sukys, host of KUOW’s “Sound Focus”

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast we shine a light on the excellent, original work that’s being produced locally at the hundreds of public radio stations across the country. This week, we tune in to KUOW in Seattle, Washington, for a conversation about a car that set a Guinness World Record back in 1973, a record that’s never been broken since. The car is called the Opel p1, it’s got a stock engine, it runs on standard gasoline, and it gets 376 miles to the gallon. This car sat in a museum for decades, but it was recently bought by a car collector named Evan McMullen, who sat down to talk about his amazing discovery with KUOW’s Megan Sukys. Here’s more from Megan…

What a wild discovery this car collector has made! How in the world did this technology get forgotten in the first place?

The car was created for a contest sponsored by Shell Oil Company. After the contest, it was inducted into the Talladega SuperSpeedways’ Motorsports Hall of Fame. And, that’s where it stayed for years.
No one has yet found the story of why the Opel was sent to a museum, instead of an assembly line. I think it’s worth noting that the technology was not created by or for a car company that was looking to manufacture it.

(Evan’s story of the Opel reminds me of an episode from the first season of The Dukes of Hazzard, to be honest. 005. 02/23/1979 “High Octane” A contest for a workable fossil-fuel substitute offers the Dukes a big cash prize and an excuse to resurrect their old moonshine still. (It’s worth watching!)

And why aren’t engineers lining up around the block to get a look at the technology under the hood of this incredible vehicle?

Evan McMullen just bought the car at auction recently. He is now trying to get the word out about what he found. It seems that the technology was truly forgotten and people still haven’t rediscovered it.

Are there impediments in the way of pursuing this fuel efficiency system?

As Evan describes it, it sounds like the high-efficiency adjustments were relatively simple and straightforward. There was no complex technology. It used regular gas as well. So, there was not a special fuel.

Does it result in a car with a weak motor?

The car set the fuel efficiency world record by driving at a steady 30 mph. It was not a high-performance contest. But, the engine was stock, meaning it was not a modified engine.

Are the production costs prohibitively high?

Evan McMullen knows that the creators of the car were from North Carolina. But, he has not been able to track them down. So, he doesn’t know how much was spent to modify the Opel.
But, the changes were mostly limited to hard rubber tires, insulating the fuel line and reducing wind resistance to the body of the car.

Do you happen to know how much Mr. McMullen paid for the Opel p1?

He didn’t tell me the purchase price. But, he is planning to auction the car.

Tell us a bit about your radio background and the sort of work you do at KUOW… 

I started working in public radio back in my home state of North Carolina: WRQM in Rocky Mount. There, I interviewed many of the artists and musician who live in the area. Before that, I worked in commercial pop radio, including a morning show in North Myrtle Beach, SC. Back in 1999, I came out to Seattle to try to break into rich radio scene in this area. I’ve worked at KUOW since 2000, developing my interview skills and collaborating with co-workers on the show we now host.

Tell us about the show you host out there…

I’m the senior host of Sound Focus. There are four other interviewers on the show, all bringing in personal stories, like Evan McMullen’s. Sound Focus is an interview magazine that explores the character of the Northwest through personal stories. We ask people why they do what they do and how those actions shape their lives. Our guests range from political figures to bus riders, international rock stars to baristas.

So you’re on maternity leave now? Congratulations! How’s that treating you?

This is my second child. And, like with my first child, I am reminded that chaos is the start of creation. Caring for a newborn is confusing and crazy, but I know it’s the start of something wonderful. I just have to survive these first few months!

You can hear more from KUOW, Megan Sukys, and “Sound Focus” online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“It’s this very calm, green space that you come upon very suddenly in the middle of this very chaotic shantytown.”
-Producer Emma Jacobs

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast we shine a little extra light on the outstanding and original work that’s being produced locally at hundreds of public radio stations across the country. This week we get treated to an international story by way of New York City. Producer Emma Jacobs is currently an intern at the WNYC program Soundcheck – she’s also active as a mentor for younger radio-makers at the Columbia University college station WKCR. And as if that’s not enough to keep her busy, Emma is also in the midst of completing a major in Francophone Studies. She recently spent some time in West Africa, and during her stay she visited a unique independent school in Dakar called the School of the Road… Emma spoke with the school’s founder, a self-educated man named Amayatou Mbaye. She also talked with a fellow American named Chad Goodroad, who’s volunteering at the school as a teacher…

What brought you overseas to Dakar, and how did you come across this story?

I’m working on completing a major in Francophone studies. I had done a lot of academic work around immigration to France and post-colonial literature, and eventually I realized I really wanted to go to West Africa, so for a semester abroad, I decided I wanted to be in Dakar. Chad Goodroad was another American student I met in Dakar, who told me about the School of the Road, where he was working. This story begins the day I went along with him and met everyone you hear in this piece.

When you visited Amayatou Mbaye’s school, what were your first impressions of the place and how it operated?

It’s this very calm, green space that you come upon very suddenly in the middle of this very chaotic shantytown. Impromptu, but very peaceful. The group of mostly very young students recites their lessons, and they’re a very cute, curious bunch. There’s a sort of nursery school–a group of four-year-olds just sitting happily in the corner, watching everything that’s going on. You can feel that it’s an operation run on a shoestring, but it has the feel and the atmosphere of a school. I think Chad and I both felt some ambivalence, because while such an attractive project that M’baye has put so much into, his school’s lack of formality can make it difficult to see how much the students progress. But, as Chad points out, it does reach some students with an education they might not find otherwise.

It sounds like the public schools in Dakar don’t have a really stellar reputation… Are they under-funded? Disorganized? What’s going on with the system there?

Senegal’s schools are over-crowded, and under-funded, particularly in poorer or rural areas. M’Baye told me the teachers in the public counterparts to his schools go on strike a lot too. The more well-known piece of the system, which I learned more about, is the public university, which had strikes going on nearly the entire time I was in Dakar.

Are there any particular memories or mental images that have really stuck with you since your visit?

Well, directly after this visit the School of the Road, I went straight to the doctor’s, where they cut this living, half-inch long larva out of my ankle. But, more seriously, there was this point every day on my walk home from school where I would turn in off a busy road onto a side street. And very suddenly, all the noise of the cars would fade and you’d hear bird song and maybe children playing. It’s something that conjures up for me all the abrupt contrasts of the city and of being there and walking through it.

Tell us a bit about your background and your radio career… you’re an intern at WNYC currently? What sort of work are you doing there?

I think I’ve always thought about radio, but only recently I realized it really seemed to be what I do. I programmed jazz for a year in Chicago and then I came to New York, where I co-run a youth radio program for high school and middle school students at WKCR, and work on some of my own pieces. While I was in Dakar, I got to see a lot of radio as a grass-roots tool for community activists. I worked with a Senegalese human rights worker there who aired a weekly program on the issues of refugees in the country and I made a visit out to another community station in a very poor suburb of the city. Radio there could mean something so different. Since I got back, I have gotten to peek into the major leagues this summer at WNYC, interning for Soundcheck, where I’m sorting the mail, and screening the calls, and getting to learn the dynamic of how a show’s team works together and how to hone my own skills.

As you continue to study the craft of radio-making, what are some of the more valuable things you’ve learned along the way about taping, editing, writing, voicing a story? Any advice for other young producers who are looking to get started in the field?

I wish I knew enough to give advice on this one. I’m learning by trial and error just trying to work my way through pieces and listen to what works and what doesn’t. I make my friends listen. I have completed some truly terrible pieces of radio to figure out how it works, but they’ve got to be done, too. If being overseas has opened my eyes in any way, it’s to bring home the reality that there are stories everywhere and you won’t run out.

You can hear more from Emma Jacobs online at the Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“Everyone knows what needs to be done it’s just a matter of weather or not the necessary changes will be made or the same old tradition of corruption and civic disengagement will continue.”
-WWOZ Street Talk producer David Weinberg

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. Each week on this podcast, we drop in at one of the more than three hundred public radio stations across the US and give a little extra attention to the excellent work that’s being locally by radio-makers around the country. This week we check in again at WWOZ in New Orleans, Louisiana, where producer David Weinberg has been working to document the cultural life of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. David recently put together a report for the WWOZ Street Talk series about an initiative designed to get the city’s high school students interested in a professional skill that their town needs dearly right now: building and architectural design. Here’s more from David:

David, you and I last corresponded in January, and you had this to say about what daily life was like for you where you live in the Seventh Ward: “About half of the houses in my neighborhood are not only empty but visibly destroyed. There are lots of broken windows and piles of people’s possessions still strewn across overgrown lawns. It definitely takes its toll on you, especially seeing the kids in my neighborhood playing amongst the heaps mold-ridden debris outside many of the homes. I walk my dog everyday and it’s rare that I don’t hear shouting and arguments coming from inside a house. People are tired of living in a place that looks like a war zone.” Have you seen any changes for the better in the past 6 months?

Progress in my neighborhood is happening very slowly. I would say half a dozen more houses have been gutted and are livable since last we spoke. There is a church almost finished being remodeled and the FEMA trailer park that was near my house has been cleared of all residents and all the trailers are gone. But overall the area hasn’t changed a whole lot.

You got to talk with a lot of kids for this student design story, and I wonder how has their reaction to the aftermath of Katrina been different than older folks? Are the kids more or less resilient and optimistic about the future than their elders, do you think?

I think their reaction is varied. Some kids evacuated early, didn’t lose a lot and saw the experience as an adventure. But there are kids who saw some pretty traumatic things. There are kids I have spoken with whose parents never came back from being evacuated and they are living with friends and family. Then there are the kids who were evacuated and were attending public schools in other places and they are coming back and saying, “Hey, we are getting shafted here.” In some cases it’s made kids ask a lot of questions about why things are they way they are here. I do think the kids are a little more resilient. I also think that they are more willing to see the possibility for change as a more realistic goal then a lot of the elders.

The people behind this student design initiative are operating on the principle that design can empower kids and give them a better vision of their future… did you see that philosophy in effect when you visited with the students?

I think a lot of kids definitely feel more empowered after these projects. Anytime you are able to give kids real hands-on projects on a real-life scale, you are able to get past the “when are we ever going to use this?” argument and that has a lot of weight with kids – especially the projects that dealt with actual buildings. The kids that worked on the school courtyard project are spending every day seeing the fruits of their own labor. That’s pretty big to these kids. It also gives them a feeling that the adults in their lives believe in them and trust them with things that matter.

The design classes are an interesting way to make young people feel invested in staying where they live… what else do you think these kids are going to need in order to keep them from leaving New Orleans for better opportunities after high school?

New Orleans has always been a place where most people who grew up here stayed here and to some extent I don’t think that is going to change a whole lot. But the future New Orleanians are going to have to do more than just stay. They are going to inherit a whole lot of problems from the past generations. The schools for the most part are still a mess, the crime is at an all time high and a huge chunk of the economy has been washed away. The schools especially are in a real experimental stage; the city has brought in all these high-priced hotshots from outside the state, there are an unprecedented number of charter schools, and tons of new teachers. But it still feels like everything is on a trial and error basis. Everyone knows what needs to be done it’s just a matter of weather or not the necessary changes will be made or the same old tradition of corruption and civic disengagement will continue. Either way it’s going to be a lot of work, and despite what promises are made by politicians and educators. It’s going to take a long time to fix the system.

You can hear more from David Weinberg and WWOZ’s “Street Talk” series online at the Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at: www.prx.org.

“I spoke to one man who had been at the (Social Services) office for five hours!”
-WYPR producer Mary Rose Madden

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Thanks for checking out the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin, and each week on this podcast we give a little extra attention to the outstanding work that’s being produced locally at the hundreds of local public radio stations around the country. This week we tune in to WYPR in Baltimore where producer Mary Rose Madden has been looking into a growing economic problem centered on the state’s food stamp program. It turns out that because of rising food costs, food stamps are decreasing in value – they’re also helping fewer and fewer people. Here’s more from Mary Rose…

How did this story end up on your radar?

I heard a few different things related to food stamps within a two-week period. The Farm Bill was being voted on in Congress and news reports were covering some changes that bill would bring to the Food Stamp Program. Also, I was doing research about the New Deal, Welfare Reform, and federal subsidies, and I came across some alarming statistics about the federal entitlement, the food stamp program. And lastly, the food crisis was being discussed and explored in the news. So, when I spoke to my editors and told them I wanted to look into the program and see how effective it is – I brought all this to the table and they gave me the green light.

At the beginning of your piece, you talk with a 70-year-old woman named Beverly… what surprised you most about her story?

Beverly surprised me by being so open about her situation. She gave me permission to tape our conversation then spoke to me like we had known each other for years. One more thing: She’s obviously elderly and low-income, but she also lives in a tough part of Baltimore. It’s incredible to me that she is fully determined to make it to her community organization’s meetings.

When you spoke with Maryland Food Stamp Program Director Kevin MacGuire, you learned that 550 to 600 thousand people in MD are eligible for the assistance, but that the participation rate is only 55 to 60 percent. Tell us a little bit about why that number is so low… Is it more that people just don’t know that they’re eligible? Or is it just too complicated to get screened and approved for the assistance?

There are a few reasons the number is so low. First, folks have trouble applying for the program even though the state has made efforts to streamline the process by beginning the process online. The fact is you still need to go to the office of Social Services to finalize your application. This is a major deterrent – I spoke to one man who had been at the office for five hours! Unfortunately, he didn’t make the final script (I was asked to leave the premises in the middle of our conversation!) – but asking someone to find five hours off from work, maybe for a babysitter, or just from your life – is a unrealistic. Second, the food stamp program qualifies people with such low incomes (this is due in part to the ultra low poverty rate) – that many people don’t qualify even though they are indeed hungry. These people go to food banks and other places for help, but the federal entitlement should be able to help them.

Are there plans in the works to adjust the value of food stamps to correspond with inflated food costs?

The Farm Bill has adjusted the value of food stamps to correspond with inflated food costs, on a yearly basis, I believe. But, it’s my understanding that the income levels have not been adjusted. So, you may get a little more money for food, but more people won’t qualify to receive those benefits.

It sounds like the Maryland Department of Social Services office is about as user-friendly as a department of motor vehicles bureau… what’s making the place so intimidating and un-navigable for people?

That, I’m afraid, I do not have the answer to. Exactly what is this “red tape”? Why the lines? I wish we knew.

It sounds like the internet might be simplifying the application and screening process somewhat… where do folks log on to find out more?

There are a number of places: in the outro to the story we name: www.mdhungersolutions.org. There’s also www.seedco.org (here you can learn about other financial assistance, like help paying your gas and electric bill), www.marylandsail.org, and lastly, www.dhr.state.md.us/how/cashfood/fstamp.htm.

You can hear more from WYPR and Mary Rose Madden online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at: www.prx.org.