Mary Heisey was a 2022 RJI Fellow. She created the Youth Media Starter Guide.

She and Kelsey Tolchin-Kupferer collaborated to create a comprehensive guide that supports radio newsrooms in creating or expanding youth media programs to train and invest in the next generation of journalists as well as engage future listeners, leaders, and supporters of radio.

“Kelsey and I have a combined 15 years of experience in youth media at public radio stations, and during that time we’ve seen and heard so much about the challenges that public media are facing when it comes to diversifying their staff and the stories they tell,” Heisey said. “Challenges like, ‘How do we actually reach all of the public and not just some of the public? We know that youth media is an untapped creative solution to some of those challenges.”

Heisey works as an audio producer and narrative editor, and previously produced RadioActive Youth Media at KUOW. She currently lives in Charlotte, N.C.

Kelsey Tolchin-Kupferer was a 2022 RJI Fellow. She created the Youth Media Starter Guide.

She collaborated with Mary Heisey to create a comprehensive guide that supports radio newsrooms in creating or expanding youth media programs to train and invest in the next generation of journalists as well as engage future listeners, leaders, and supporters of radio.

“We’re creating a website that will be a one-stop shop for radio stations that want to start or expand youth media programming,” Tolchin-Kupferer said. “And while it’s for NPR member stations specifically, any radio station can use it. Whether your station has no money and no time, some money and some time, or a lot of money and a lot of time, we’re saying, ‘here’s what you can do.’”

Tolchin-Kupferer is an alum of the Missouri School of Journalism and worked at KBIA-FM, the School’s NPR member station, while earning her degree. She is currently a producer for RadioActive Youth Media, the teen journalism program at KUOW Public Radio, an NPR member station in Seattle, Washington.