Congratulations to Youth Radio

OAKLAND — Youth Radio received an award over the weekend for investigative journalism at the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. conference in Las Vegas. The award was for a series aired on NPR's "All Things Considered" titled, "In the Kennel: Uncovering a Navy Unit's Culture of Abuse."

The Youth Radio team told the story of an American sailor's abuse by his chief. The sailor had been hogtied in a chair, left in a kennel spread with feces and forced to simulate sex acts on videotape. They revealed more than 90 incidents of hazing, sex solicitation and embezzlement, uncovering widespread psychological, sexual and physical abuses across the unit, a pattern which had been investigated but dropped.

Their report resulted in a thorough examination of the conduct of commissioned officers in the Bahrain chain of command, the forced retirement of the unit's chief and a review of the Navy's response to complaints.

The supervising team behind the project was Youth Radio producers Ellin O'Leary, Charlie Foster, Rachel Krantz, Nishat Kurwa and Lissa Soep along with NPR reporters Tom Bowman, Graham Smith and Chris Turpin. Each year, Youth Radio trains about 1,300 youths, mostly low-income and minorities, in a broad spectrum of media-related careers.

Reported by Liz Gonzalez for Oakland Tribune