As a video news reporter on assignment, young Addyson Riley comes off as a real pro. Informed and engaging, she tackles a thorny subject — should Black people wear hair bonnets in public? — with aplomb, and conducts man-(and woman)-on-the-street interviews with the polish of a seasoned veteran.
“I wanted to see why bonnets were seen as unprofessional,” she says to the camera. “What was unprofessional about protecting your hair? So I did some digging.”
While reporting what she unearthed, including aspects of Black culture and institutional racism, Addyson smiles brightly, flashing a mouthful of braces on her teeth.
That’s because Addyson is a teenage journalist with VOX ATL, an Atlanta-based organization that teaches young people the power of their voices. Founded in 1993, the organization is a 2026 Counter Narrative Project Media Fund grant recipient.
Uncensored, but Not Unedited
Courtni Hill, the organization’s digital media specialist, says VOX ATL’s founder, Rachel Alterman Wallack, had a simple yet somewhat radical idea for the times: young people should tell their own stories instead of adults doing it for them. More than three decades later, an Atlanta teenager aged 13 to 19 can walk through the door with something to say, learn how to report or create it, get published, work alongside media professionals, build a portfolio and potentially get paid — all before college.
“We center around teen self-expression and amplifying their voices,” she says. “We also work to hone in their voice and develop it as they publish different forms of media, such as podcasts, articles, and then long-form and short-form video content. We also do poetry as well.”
That includes Atlanta's Youth Poet Laureate program, where young writers combine poetry and performance with civic engagement and social justice. The 2026 winner can choose a $500 prize or assistance publishing a chapbook.
The subjects aren't necessarily what adults running a newsroom might assign. During VOX's 2026 summer journalism program, one teenager produced a video examining the debate over wearing bonnets in public, while others reported on teen mental health, dress codes, Atlanta's hip-hop scene, homelessness and why teenagers are obsessed with fast food.
The operation itself is relatively small. The parent company, VOX Teen Communications, reported about $842,000 in revenue in fiscal 2024, with roughly 91% coming from contributions, and $534,000 in net assets. That makes fundraising important to its survival, but its net assets have grown substantially over the past several years.
Wallack, the founder, stepped back from day-to-day leadership in 2025, thirty-two years after she started the operation with a stapled print run and thirteen kids who wanted to be heard. The organization looks almost nothing like the one Wallack founded — bigger, statewide, data-driven, funded by grants from state agencies that once had no idea what Georgia teens were thinking.
VOX ATL’s long-term success is remarkable given Wallack created it from scratch, long before cellphone cameras and the internet existed. VOX ATL is thriving, Hill says, in an era when young people are expressing themselves in clever D.I.Y videos and TikTok reels posted online, as well as Twitch livestreams.
These days, “Teens can go on their phone, and they can type whatever they want or turn on their camera on their phone and post their video, which wasn't really the case” when VOX launched during the Clinton administration, Hill says. The appeal for metro Atlanta youth, she says, lies in “the professional development that they get, and the opportunities” to learn from professionals.
“Our big thing is that they are uncensored but not unedited,” Hill says.
Youth In the Driver’s Seat
Journalism remains at the center of the operation, but VOX has expanded far beyond teaching kids how to write newspaper stories. The content they create isn't locked away in a classroom. VOX publishes it, and people consume it.
Recent work has included an article examining stereotypes surrounding Black teenagers and prom, an interview with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens about the World Cup, and a podcast featuring teens involved with DeKalb County Juvenile Court's Rebound Program, developed with WABE, an Atlanta public broadcasting station.
Though the station broadcast the podcast and guided its production, Hill says VOX ATL teens were in the driver’s seat.
“They're directing. They're writing the script. They're hosting. They're interviewing different guests,” she says. “That's something that a lot of [content creating] 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds can't say that they've done.”
The experience sometimes continues even after teens finish the semester-long program, Hill says.
“We've seen a lot of our teens grow, not even just professionally, but personally as well,” she says. “A lot of our teens stay from when they're a freshman to when they graduate, and to even after that. So even every year, seeing them mature more or grow more in their skills, it's just amazing to see.”
Put together, though, VOX's real product isn't necessarily journalism, poetry or podcasts. At a time when media is constantly adapting to new trends and technology, VOX ATL is helping shape the next generation of storytellers like Addyson Riley, the video reporter digging into the controversy around wearing bonnets in public.
After recounting the history of Black women and headraps, how Black hair needs protection, and the role of cultural bias and white beauty standards in America, Addyson wrapped her report with a question VOX ATL has been asking its hometown teenagers for the better part of three decades:
“What do you think?”
