PBS elections podcast driven by students — including a Mercer Island teen

A special season of a PBS student-led podcast is focusing on young people’s thoughts this election season. In one episode, a Washington state student delves into immigration and the topic of “What America means to you.”

Grace Go, a 2024 graduate of Mercer Island High School, interviews her mom for the first episode of the “On Our Minds” podcast. Go’s mom grew up near the 38th parallel, the border between North and South Korea.

“When I actually sat down and spoke with her, I was just kind of blown away by some of these things that I didn’t know,” the 18-year-old said.

Go has moved to nine different schools, and she’d always wondered why. In the podcast episode, her mom said the moves were to help further her children’s education.

In her episode of the “On Our Minds” podcast, Grace Go discusses immigration with her mom. (Courtesy of Grace Go)

“Even though we knew that moving to different school is hard on Grace, we decided to push forward to find better education environment for her, so we moved quite a bit, mainly for putting her in better school district,” Mikyung, or Mia, Go said in the podcast episode.  “So we are satisfied and grateful for the opportunities we could provide for her.” 

Childhood experiences and sacrifices related to the immigrant experience aren’t really things they talked about before the interview, Grace Go said.

“On Our Minds” has tackled four seasons of mental health issues, as told by teens for teens. This season, the student advisory board asked PBS producers if they could work on a special related to this year’s election.

“They came to us and said, we don’t really feel very heard in most election coverage,” said Briget Ganske, a youth media producer at PBS News Student Reporting Labs.

This election season, young people across the country are bringing their political concerns to a new student-led PBS podcast. (Credit: PBS Student Reporting Labs)

That’s important because this year, around 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote this November.

As a young journalist, Grace Go isn’t a stranger to talking about tough topics. Last year, she won a podcasting award from NPR for her podcast called “Discomfort Food.” 

However, she said her topic of “What America means to you” is a good starter episode to invite more young people to think about politics. 

“I think it’s always fun to see what the opposing opinion is. And I feel like if that scares you, you probably need to hear the other opinion the most,” she said.

Other episodes will delve into themes of censorship and misinformation, Ganske said.

“We really wanted them to create fair and balanced reporting. They needed to include a variety of perspectives,” Ganske said. 

This season, the PBS Student Reporting Lab worked with 26 students from 15 states and Puerto Rico.

For young people concerned about election coverage, Grace Go said it’s important to seek out different journalism sources.

“Give it to us straight,” she said. “Even if you are super knowledgeable or you know nothing, it’s always best to keep things very simple. And it’s even better when that simple message or that simple piece of information is coming from someone our own age.”

That’s why she was excited to be part of this podcast, she said. 

The special season of “On Our Minds” will air every other week through Election Day.