PBS NewsHour debuts Teen Mental Health Podcast "On Our Minds"

After more than a year of battling a pandemic, lockdowns, economic hardship, and remote schooling challenges, it's no wonder that mental health among teens is a urgent issue. For the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, the answer to address the issue was to have teens talk about teenage mental health concerns.

From the PBS NewsHour’s Student Reporting Labs (SRL) team, On Our Minds with Noah and Zion will premiere on Friday, May 28. The podcast about youth mental health for teens, by teens, is in partnership with WETA’s Well Beings, a multi-year mental health public awareness campaign that works with local PBS stations across the country to deliver local programming.

Hosted by 16 year-old high school sophomores Noah Konetivich of Lebanon, PA and Zion Williams of Clinton Township, MI, each episode covers themes such as social isolation, anxiety, depression, and the impact of racism, and includes solutions-oriented conversations with experts.

“Radio and podcasting have always been a passion of mine,” says Noah, recalling why he applied to be a host. “As someone who personally struggles with mental health, I am interested in the mental health experiences of millions of teens, adolescents, and more specifically the LGBTQIA+ community I identify with.”

“I feel that in our society we don’t talk about how we’re truly feeling,” Zion shares. “One way to improve our mental health is by talking about it, especially for teenagers. I want to provide advice to teenagers about mental health and show them that it's okay to feel the way they do.”

Each episode features stories highlighting themes such as social isolation, anxiety, depression, and the impact of racism, and include solutions-oriented conversations with experts. The outcome will be a wellspring of authentic stories about the teenage experience, which will connect, educate, and inspire listeners of all ages.

"The podcast medium is unique and has enabled students across our network to use it to genuinely grapple with their feelings and experiences, without the fear of a camera," says Briget Ganske, SRL's Youth Media Producer who led SRL's first-ever podcast. “And for listeners, it’s an intimate experience. You can press play, get settled or take a walk—and just listen."

Building on SRL’s success in covering mental health topics, the podcast was produced using stories that students pitched through a mental health podcast curriculum for Mental Health Awareness Month.

“Mental health has been top of mind for teens over the last decade - whenever we’ve heard from our youth advisors or shared our curriculum with educators and schools across the country,” says Leah Clapman, SRL founder and managing editor of education for the PBS NewsHour. “Then the pandemic pushed mental health challenges to a whole new level and we have an opportunity to create content for and with young people, whose voices are often missing from traditional media.”

Now in over 160 middle and high schools, Student Reporting Labs (SRL) is a national youth journalism program and public media initiative that trains teenagers across the country to produce stories that highlight the achievements, challenges, and reality of today’s youth.

Since 2009, SRL has supported students in telling stories about their communities and about the issues that have impacted them. Almost 12 years later, most U.S. teens reported seeing anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019.

This is an impressive move by PBS, which has not been that active in the podcast space to date. The inclusion of teens as co-hosts to discuss teen mental health shows a keen understanding of communicating to a targeted audience. The use of podcasting to discuss mental health acknowledges that such discussions require an intimacy that podcasting can offer listeners.