Imagine waking up each morning to a firehose of information. Before you’ve even gotten out of bed, your phone is glowing with social media posts, breaking news alerts, videos from strangers, and messages from friends and family. Some of it is true. Some of it is half-true. Some of it is deliberately designed to deceive. For adults, navigating this constant stream is hard enough. For young people, whose identities and beliefs are still taking shape, it can feel overwhelming. They are told to be careful online, but rarely are they taught how to figure out what to trust. They are told to “do their own research,” but not given the tools to know what good research looks like. In New Orleans, a city with a deep and beautiful storytelling tradition, an organization called Be Loud Studios is trying to change that. As a partner of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Be Loud Studios has created a new audio series called “Loud Stories: Youth on Misinformation.” The series does something radical: it puts young people behind the microphone, not as passive consumers of information, but as active investigators, storytellers, and truth-seekers. It is built on the belief that teenagers are not just victims of misinformation; they are also witnesses to it, and they have something important to say about how it moves through their communities, their families, and their own minds.
During a five-day program this summer, 17 high school students from New Orleans came together to explore that question. They came from different neighborhoods, different schools, and different backgrounds, but they shared something in common: they had all experienced the confusion and frustration of not knowing what to believe. Maybe they had watched a relative share a dangerous health claim on Facebook. Maybe they had been bullied by strangers online. Maybe they had struggled with body image while scrolling through filtered, impossible images on social media. Those experiences were not set aside. They were the starting point. Over the course of the program, the students researched how misinformation spreads and why it sticks. They interviewed experts and community leaders, asking hard questions about COVID-19, public health, body image, and social media. They learned how to use microphones, how to record interviews, and how to edit audio into a story that could move someone else. They learned to listen, not just to experts, but to each other. The result is a collection of original audio stories that are personal, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable. The stories are available at BeLoudStories.org and will air on WWNO 89.9 FM, New Orleans’ NPR member station, throughout October. For a teenager, hearing your own voice on public radio is a powerful kind of validation. It says: your thoughts matter. Your experience matters. You belong in the public conversation.
The impact of the program went far beyond the final recordings. In a post-program survey, 94% of participants said they understood how misinformation affects their community. That number is impressive, but perhaps even more striking is the 89% who said they felt more confident expressing themselves. Misinformation is not just an intellectual problem; it is an emotional one. It makes people feel confused, powerless, and isolated. To fight it, young people need more than facts. They need confidence. They need to believe that their voice is worth hearing. One participant described their favorite part of the program as “how we’re able to voice our opinions without judgement.” That phrase should stop us in our tracks. How many young people feel truly free to speak without judgment? In classrooms, they are graded. Online, they are attacked. At home, they are sometimes dismissed. But in this program, they found a rare kind of space: a room where their thoughts were taken seriously, where their questions were welcomed, and where their experiences were treated as expertise. They learned that asking questions is not a sign of weakness, but a form of strength. They learned that their own struggles with misinformation—the confusing scroll, the family argument, the late-night worry—are not just personal problems. They are part of a larger social crisis. And they learned that they can do something about it. By the end of the week, they were not just students who had completed a workshop. They were storytellers, investigators, and leaders. That kind of transformation cannot be fully captured in a survey, but it can be heard in the stories they created.
Alex Owens, co-founder and executive director of Be Loud Studios, articulated the philosophy behind the project in a way that deserves to be repeated: “Loud Stories is designed around one principle: young people already have valid stories to tell. Our role isn’t to give them a voice. It’s to give them the tools, the audience and the trust to tell those stories on their own terms. When young people investigate issues like misinformation on the mic, they don’t just become better storytellers; they become more informed citizens and stronger leaders in their communities.” Owens’s words challenge the way we usually talk about young people. We call them “the future,” as if they are not already living in the present. We worry about their screen time, but we rarely ask what they see on those screens and what they think about it. We assume that adults must protect young people from misinformation, but we forget that young people are often the first to encounter it, and the most vulnerable to its effects. Be Loud Studios takes a different path. It starts with trust. It gives young people professional tools and real audiences, and then gets out of the way. The results are not always polished, but they are always genuine. And genuineness is exactly what is missing from so much public conversation. When a young person investigates misinformation on the mic, they are doing something deeply civic. They are learning to weigh evidence, to question sources, and to make a case. Those are the skills of an informed citizen. They are also the skills of a leader. In a democracy, the ability to communicate clearly and think critically is not a luxury. It is a necessity. By investing in these skills, Be Loud Studios is investing in the future of New Orleans, and the future of the country.
This project is not an isolated experiment. Be Loud Studios has spent years supporting young New Orleanian storytellers. Previous cohorts have explored artificial intelligence, the legacy of Hurricane Katrina, and how young people are navigating the digital world. Each project adds a new layer to a growing archive of youth voices, capturing how this generation sees the forces shaping their lives. And now, the lessons from “Loud Stories” are being woven into something even more durable. Be Loud Studios is developing a curriculum for educators who want to engage students in conversations about misinformation and new media. This is crucial because misinformation is not going away. It will only become more sophisticated, more personalized, and more difficult to detect. Young people need tools to navigate this landscape, and teachers need tools to help them. The curriculum will be a bridge between the world of professional audio storytelling and the everyday classroom. It will invite students to ask the same questions that the 17 summer participants asked: Who is behind this message? What do they want me to believe? What evidence supports it? What does my own experience tell me? Be Loud Studios is also extending the conversation beyond the classroom. Through community dinners, student DJs will share their work, and community members will sit down together to talk about misinformation. There is something deeply human about this approach. It recognizes that misinformation thrives in isolation and distrust. It also recognizes that the antidote to misinformation is not just fact-checking; it is relationship. When people break bread together, when they hear a young person tell a story about a rumor that hurt someone, they are more likely to listen. And listening is the first step toward understanding. These dinners are small, but their ripple effects could be large.
None of this would have been possible without the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These two organizations have long understood that the health of a community depends on more than access to doctors or clean water. It depends on whether people feel seen, heard, and able to shape the forces that affect their lives. Misinformation is a public health issue. It affects whether people get vaccinated, whether they trust public institutions, and whether they can tell the difference between a credible source and a conspiracy theory. By supporting Be Loud Studios, WKKF and RWJF are not just funding a youth media project. They are funding a more informed and more equitable future. They are betting on the idea that young people—especially young people from communities that are often ignored or stereotyped—have the insight and the creativity to solve problems that adults have struggled to solve. In an era of deepfakes, algorithmic echo chambers, and viral rumors, it is easy to feel hopeless. But “Loud Stories: Youth on Misinformation” offers a different story. It is a story about curiosity winning over fear. It is a story about a teenager pressing record and asking a hard question. It is a story about a community sitting down to listen. The 17 students who created these stories did not wait for permission to speak. They picked up microphones and spoke. They researched, they interviewed, they edited, and they shared. In doing so, they reminded us of something we often forget: the best defense against misinformation is not censorship or control, but critical thinking and human connection. When we listen to young people, we don’t just help them grow; we grow ourselves. And in the voices of these New Orleans students, we hear something that no algorithm can produce: honesty. That is worth turning up the volume for.