SAN FRANCISCO — New America Media invites you to explore the scope of our youth media work via YouthWire.org, a new one-stop portal to NAM’s statewide network of youth and community media outlets: Richmond Pulse, We’Ced (Merced), Voicewaves (Long Beach), South Kern Sol, Coachella Unincorporated, and NAM’s flagship youth media outlets, Silicon Valley DeBug, The Know (Fresno) and The Beat Within.

YouthWire is a collaborative and grassroots network of youth-produced community media outlets scattered across the state, dedicated to amplifying the voices of Californians living in “media deserts” – regions where everyday residents have few if any local media to tell their stories. These “home grown” media outlets are spaces where young media creators and community members can receive training and have access to the tools for digital storytelling, a place where residents can have their voices heard, bring community issues and perspectives to light, advocate for change, and see their faces reflected back to them in the media.

YouthWire.org functions as a news aggregator and is designed to be responsive across browsers and platforms, including mobile. The site acts as a bridge between the highly trafficked New America Media news website and NAM’s youth-produced community media hubs. On YouthWire, readers can sort stories by geography and category, browse brief summaries of those stories, and then proceed to the local website to delve deeper by reading the rest of the story or viewing multimedia.