''Ghetto Life 101'' is a 30-minute

radio broadcast Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

documentary exploring the lives of residents of the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It was created by teenagers

LeAlan Jones LeAlan Marvin Jones (born May 8, 1979) is an American journalist who lives in Chicago's South Shore. His radio documentaries have received critical acclaim and numerous awards. Jones was the Green Party's 2010 nominee for United States Senate fr ...

and Lloyd Newman and produced by

David Isay David Avram "Dave" Isay (born December 5, 1965) is an American radio producer and founder of Sound Portraits Productions. He is also the founder of StoryCorps, an ongoing oral history project. He is the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors ...

for

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

. The broadcast garnered international acclaim and won several awards.

Overview

''Ghetto Life 101'' illustrates life on the South Side of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1993. The broadcast footage was recorded by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, who were thirteen and fourteen, respectively, at the time. The broadcast centered on interviews with the boys' families, friends, and members of the community.

Reception

The broadcast was well received, and praised for its raw portrayal of life in the Chicago projects. It won several awards, including the

Sigma Delta Chi Award The Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented annually by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) for excellence in journalism. The SPJ states the purpose of the award is to promote "the free flow of information vital ...

, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming.

Later works

Jones and Newman made a second documentary, ''Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse'', which explored the backgrounds of people involved with Eric Morse, a five-year-old boy who was thrown from a fourteenth-story window in the Chicago projects by two older boys.Ghetto Life 101 & Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse at audible.com
Retrieved January 2, 2007. This won the

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were est ...

and a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

in 1996. The two documentaries and further footage from when Jones and Newman were nearing high school graduation were condensed into a book published in 1997 entitled ''Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago''.

References

External links

A 2001 update on the boys' livesAn interview with the authors of ''Our America''
on ''

Charlie Rose Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American former television journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show '' Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg LP. Rose also co-an ...

'' (1997)
''Booknotes'' interview with LeAlan Jones on ''Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago'', August 3, 1997
Radio documentaries Public housing in Chicago 1993 in radio 1993 radio programme debuts NPR programs {{hist-documentary-stub