CHICAGO MATTERS: Inside Housing

Doug Mitchell, the project manager for NPR's Next Generation Radio, helped train the new reporters.

Chicago Matters has a new component this year with the launching of a mentorship program. Chicago Public Radio is working with four reporters who are new to radio, as they to report on issues related housing, this year's topic.

This group of new reporters—Veida Hughley, Cassandra Smith, Silvana Tabares, and Ed Taylor—includes students from Kennedy-King College, Radio Arte, and Columbia College, as well as fresh talent from the Chicago community. As part of the series, each is creating one feature-length report.

The students began the program in December by participating in an intensive training session with NPR's Doug Mitchell; Mitchell heads up the network's Next Generation Radio project in Washington. Armed with their new mini-disc recording kits, the group set out and began collecting audio.

After completing his first interview on a story about his family's experiences as one of the first African-American homeowners in the village of Olympia Fields, new reporter Ed Taylor confided, "I interviewed my mom, Corrine Taylor. I was surprised to find that she had an "on-air" persona. She was, with me, the way she is in public. I learned that it can take an hour (or more) for a person to warm up and speak from the heart. It was a lot of fun."

Veida Hughley, a student at Kennedy-King College, looks into the changing face of historic Bronzeville, "Chicago's Black Metropolis". The neighborhood has cycled through the time of its heyday, to a period of neglect and urban decay, to its more recent revitalization and recognition as a historic area. Hughley wants to find out what it's like for long-time residents facing the increased interest in Bronzeville, and what happens when one's home is deemed historic.

Radio Arte's Silvana Tabares reports on runaway teens in her community of Pilsen. She sees her story as a way to explore the changing home life of some Mexican-American immigrant families, and how American culture affects traditional family relationships. Exploring personal and emotional issues with young people has its own special challenges. Silvana has had to approach her young interview subjects accordingly, relating, "I chose not to interview them the first day because I learned from previous experiences that it is better to meet with them directly first and introduce myself rather than do any actual recording. I wanted to let the young ladies know and understand my story and what I expect to receive from their perspectives. Basically, I wanted to break the ice and have a chance to talk and get to know one another."

Cassandra Smith, a local writer and veteran girl scout troop leader, profiles a troop that meets in a battered women's shelter. She'll follow young girls displaced from their homes as they participate in the troop's regular activities while making their way through the confusion and uncertainty of transition.

The mentorship program is another way Chicago Public Radio is working to diversify its on-air voice and connect with issues that are important to the city's varied ethnic and racial communities.

Profiles of the New Reporters:

Veida Hughley

Veida Hughley
Hughley, age 31, is a working mom who decided on a career change two years ago. Leaving behind a marketing job with a bank, she decided to follow her passion for radio, acting, and film. A student at Kennedy-King College, Hughley now hosts her own music show on WKKC on Saturday nights and produces a news/talk show on the same station.

Hughley grew up the youngest of 10 children in Chicago's Woodlawn community. She currently lives in Chatham, a Chicago neighborhood which, she says, is a good place to raise her children.

Cassandra Smith

Cassandra Smith
Smith, age 51, grew up in Detroit at the height of Motown and says, that sound "was a part of my everyday life." Her father was a Navy Reservist and "the house was run like a submarine at war readiness. Everyone had a rank and an assignment." Smith left home at 18 and was widowed twice by age 30.

Writing is Cassandra's third career, one she embraced at the age of 40, "after realizing my life was half over." Her work has been published in numerous journals and she has been heard on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight and This American Life.

Smith now lives in Hyde Park, because "it's a village. The person beside me in the voting booth is the same man who sold me fish at the co-op that morning. I see children grown up from childhood to adulthood. People say 'hello' on the street."

Silvana Tabares

Silvana Tabares
Tabares, age 22, was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and works part time at WRTE FM Radio Arte, a non-commercial, community-and-youth-operated radio station in the Pilsen neighborhood.

At Radio Arte, Tabares works as a producer/coordinator for Youth Metro, an magazine-format program giving youth a voice on different perspectives.

Tabares attends Columbia College full-time where she is majoring in Radio Broadcast communications.

Ed Taylor

Ed Taylor
Ed Taylor has long been harboring an interest in independent audio production, and his project for Chicago Matters represents his first step into the world of writing, recording, and reporting a work for radio.

Taylor grew up in Olympia Fields, Illinois, and remembers moving there as one of the first African-American families to buy a home in that area. He is interested in exploring how his experience differs from the new residents moving into the more predominately African-American community of Olympia Fields today.