About Kaari Pitkin
Kaari Pitkin is the Senior Producer of Radio Rookies, WNYC’s Peabody award-winning youth journalism program that teaches high school student to report and produce radio documentaries inspired by their own experiences.
Since assuming the role of Senior Producer in 2006, Pitkin has worked to expand the scope and impact of the program to include multi-media storytelling and training educators how to use youth-produced content in the classroom. Radio Rookies also continues to work with teenagers across New York City in small workshops designed to teach them how to report stories in their own lives and communities. The program is known for its highly produced and sound rich portraits of life for teenagers in NYC today and, under Pitkin’s leadership, has been recognized by the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Journalism, the National Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia Awards. Pitkin is responsible for overseeing the program, including fundraising efforts, new initiatives, and partnerships.
Before moving to Radio Rookies, Pitkin worked as a producer in WNYC’s newsroom for eight years, where she played an integral part of the station’s efforts to cover September 11th, 2001. In advance of the ten year anniversary, she produced an hour-long documentary “Our 9/11” by Radio Rookies whose lives had been changed by the attacks. Pitkin is passionate about both producing interesting and compelling content, as well as helping the Radio Rookies develop as young people. She lives in New Haven, CT with her husband and two small children.