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#50 - Ghetto Life 101

Series: SaltCast: the Backstory to Great Radio Storytelling
From: Salt Institute for Documentary Studies
Length: 00:38:07

“Ghetto Life 101" is a high-water mark for radio documentary and the story featured on this edition of the Saltcast — our fiftieth!! Read the full description.
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Piece Description

“You can do that with radio?!!”

That was my overwhelming response when I first heard “Ghetto Life 101.”  I still feel the same way even after listening to the piece dozens of times.

“Ghetto Life 101″ is a high-water mark for radio documentary and the story featured on this edition of the Saltcast — our fiftieth!!

Dave Isay produced the piece in 1993. Dave gave tape decks to two teenage boys — LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman — to document their lives on the south side of Chicago. This diary-style production was one of the first in public radio and inspired a slew of other diary documentaries and youth radio programs (see below).

Dave no longer produces docs. Instead, he manages StoryCorps, perhaps the largest oral history project ever undertaken in the United States.

For the 50th Saltcast, Dave spoke briefly with me about Ghetto Life, some of the controversy that surrounded the broadcast, and how LeAland and Lloyd are doing now.

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