Children’s Express/Y-Press

Children’s Express/Y-Press was a non-profit Indianapolis-based youth-media news organization that documented stories of young people and the adults who affected their lives. For over 23 years, more than 1,750 young Hoosier journalists provided an underrepresented voice in mainstream media, interviewing over 7,500 individuals in pursuit of stories that affected kids.

A nonprofit organization that stressed youth development and leadership skills, Children’s Express/Y-Press was located first at The Children’s Museum, and in 2006 moved to the Indianapolis Star building. Young people, ages 10 to 18, learned professional reporting and editing skills. It published weekly stories in print and online in the Indianapolis Star and, for several years, for radio on WFYI.

The youth journalists tackled serious topics. They told the stories of kids running the border in Nogales, Arizona, and dealing with homegrown terrorism in Oklahoma City. They traveled the world from Cuba to Brazil to Africa to tell compelling stories, but their ongoing stories were about Hoosier kids. With traditional mainstream outlets, they documented the issues of their time: teen pregnancy, accessibility to guns, and poverty. They interviewed world-renowned leaders: Desmund Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Margaret Thatcher. Interviews included athletes like Magic Johnson and Reggie Miller, authors Judy Blume and Gary Paulsen, and politicians President Bill Clinton and Senator Richard Lugar.

These young journalists reported on stories that affected young people worldwide and had the opportunity to pitch story ideas, and then fundraise for these larger features that involved travel, both domestically and internationally. The youth-media organization also covered presidential conventions in election years. They also produced publications on topics like violence and diversity that highlighted youth voices for the Annie E. Casey Foundation to illustrate the statistics in the Kids’ Count Data Book with youth voices.

The program ended in 2012 for lack of funding. In 2016, Lynn Sygiel and Freddi Stevens-Jacobi, in cooperation with WFYI and the Indiana Historical Society, defined and developed the Legacy Project to ensure that the work of young Hoosiers would be preserved.

Sygiel, the nonprofit’s former director, and Freddi Stevens-Jacobi, an alumna’s mother and filmmaker, worked with alumni and their families to secure funding for the project that included archiving the collection of stories, audiotapes, and photographs at the Indiana Historical Society for future generations. Additionally, a 30-minute film entitled, “When Kids Wrote the Headlines,” was produced and aired on WFYI. The Project also includes a teaching curriculum for classrooms and a short-segments of the documentary to sheds light on a generation of stories produced by Y-Press reporters and the enduring relevance of continuing to use those resources.