With the Voice Memos app open on her phone, Avani Shah-Lipman of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, frantically searched for people to interview in downtown Evanston. To her surprise, CVS Pharmacy was the perfect spot for her.
“I saw this one guy shopping for toilet paper,” Shah-Lipman said. “He wasn’t really walking, didn’t really have a destination, and didn’t look like he was in too big of a rush either.”
She interviewed him for 10 minutes by the Charmin.
Throughout the program, cherubs interviewed strangers in Evanston about everything from political beliefs to the city’s Fourth of July parade.
While Shah-Lipman found sources in the personal-care aisle of a pharmacy, Grace Sharma of Lorton, Virginia, said coffee shops were her ideal places to conduct interviews.
“My favorite spot was Colectivo,” Sharma said. “Being in a more crowded environment makes [the interviewees] feel like it’s more of a conversation and not like an intimidating interview.”
Many cherubs said it was easier to approach strangers when they were sitting down by themselves rather than when they were on the move.
“If someone is power walking, do not stop them,” Shah-Lipman said.
Devin Berkowitz of New York said she landed the most interviews at Fountain Square, a public plaza with tables and chairs.
“There are so many people sitting there alone,” Berkowitz said. “I noticed that a lot of college students go there to hang out and do some work, and they tend to be more friendly and approachable.”
Still, a hurdle remained: finding the right way to ask for an interview.
“I just make sure I’m wearing my Medill sweatshirt, and then I immediately give them my name,” said Emerson Leger of The Plains, Virginia. “I also make sure not to just shove my phone in their face.”
