SXSW Community Service Awards Recognition: The Bell
Summary
The SXSW Community Service Awards celebrate leaders and non-profit organizations from Austin and around the world who work tirelessly to improve the standing of the specific groups and causes that they serve. Taylor McGraw is a journalist and educator dedicated to giving young people the tools to tell their own stories. Prior to co-founding The Bell in 2017, he spent five years teaching and coaching in New York City schools, where he recognized that the voices most impacted by education policy were the ones least involved in shaping it. Under his leadership, The Bell has grown from a podcast project into a nationally recognized leader in youth-led journalism. The organization’s student reporting has shifted from the classroom to the halls of power: its coverage of school segregation and inequity has been cited in citywide policy discussions and featured on national airwaves. The Bell’s student reporters have twice been named finalists for the National Awards for Education Reporting, competing against professional newsrooms of all sizes. Beyond producing impactful youth-led storytelling, Taylor is a driving force for systemic change in journalism education. In 2022, he spearheaded the formation of the NYC Youth Journalism Coalition, a collective effort to strengthen the journalism career pipeline. Through the Coalition's ""Journalism for All"" initiative, The Bell and partners are actively expanding journalism programs to dozens of schools that historically lacked them, democratizing access to the field for thousands of students. Now based in Jackson, Mississippi, Taylor is scaling The Bell's work through the Jackson Youth Newsroom, a program focused on building a new generation of civic-minded journalists in the Deep South. Taylor holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, an MA in Teaching from Relay GSE, and a BA in Public Policy Leadership from the University of Mississippi. His love for journalism began at his own high school newspaper in Oxford, Mississippi, and he remains committed to ensuring that every student has a platform to speak truth to power.
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Contributors
- Taylor McGraw
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