Ice cream trucks selling sweet treats to kids on hot days, posters plastered on buildings and street lamps, conversations in coffee shops: story inspiration struck cherubs anytime and anywhere.
Throughout the course of the four-week program, cherubs brainstormed for a variety of enterprise story assignments. They drew inspiration from unlikely places as they explored the nooks and crannies of Evanston.
“I just walked around Evanston and found some businesses that seemed interesting to me,” said Radian Hong of Rocklin, California. “I finally found one called Plant Shop Evanston that was actually interesting and would let me interview somebody.”
Arunima Chaudhary of Chicago said she agreed that going around town was helpful for finding story ideas. She did her feature story on a local church in Evanston.
“The stained glass in the church was really pretty,” Chaudhary said. “I went exploring and found places that I really liked and that’s where I got inspiration.”
Hong said he learned where to find intriguing stories from instructors.
“They tell you to look for the things that you would want to tell your friends,” Hong said. “Be curious and ask questions about things you see in the community.”
Others were influenced by the guest speakers and topics they saw in the news.
Teresa Chen of Shanghai said she wanted to try political reporting when she came to the cherub program. She said she was interested in college protests and was inspired to write about them after listening to guest speaker Erin Ailworth, formerly of The Wall Street Journal.
“When we listened to Erin Ailworth talk about her experience at Columbia, I thought, ‘I’m very close to this topic that I had been reading about for the past few months,’” Chen said. “This would be a good opportunity to explore it.”
Some even found stories right on their phones. Caroline McHugh of Chicago said she struggled finding a topic for her trend story until she realized every trend she knew was from looking at social media.
“I literally said ‘I’m going to sit down. I’m going to scroll TikTok until I have an idea,’” she said. “And that literally worked. My story idea was comedy sketch TikToks.”
McHugh said that while finding stories could be difficult, she felt everything eventually came together.
“It can be hard when it’s on a short deadline, but I feel like everyone got to ideas they liked in the end,” she said. “You know, let the inspiration flow, man.”
