Kaylyn Nguyen of Hayward, California, weathered over 60 rejections when hunting for sources. She said she could find few ethnomusicologists and producers to begin with, and even fewer agreed to speak on Afrobeats in K-pop music. For 11 days, Nguyen tried everything from phone calls to direct messages.
“The assignment was due on Sunday, and by Friday, I had two interviews,” Nguyen said.
Few cherubs were safe from rejection in their search for interviews, each failed attempt a new lesson in scoring sources.
Several of the cherubs’ assignments required them to interview strangers on the street. Eliza Goldwasser of Park Ridge, Illinois, said her first rejection was herself, when she walked past 20 potential interviewees on her first assignment.
“This was before I got the courage to actually ask someone,” Goldwasser said.
Even on the Evanston streets, where many residents knew of the Medill cherub program, sources were hard to find. When Goldwasser finally asked for her first interview, she did not immediately succeed. She said she was rejected eight times.
“I really just thought that I was a terrible journalist,” Goldwasser said. “Especially given that it was the first assignment, it was overwhelming to have so much rejection early on.”
Goldwasser said she found sources after starting to introduce herself as a journalism student instead of just asking strangers if they had a minute. She said that identifying as a journalist went a long way in forming trust.
For Sara Rosener of Fontana, California, trust was about projecting confidence — or, at least, not freaking out. Rosener said she took time to ground herself before asking people for interviews.
“I took a deep breath,” Rosener said. “I just controlled my face, and I walked up. I controlled my entire body to not look terrified.”
Other cherubs studied their sources’ body language. Ben Fogler of Needham, Massachusetts, said he considered himself selective with his sources. He knew whom to avoid: anyone on the move, anyone with headphones in, anyone who scowled at him, and anyone visibly exhausted. Fogler said he learned the hard way when approaching a woman on the street.
“She literally looked almost dead,” Fogler said. “She was so tired. And I was like, ‘Hi, do you want to interview?’ She just shook her head at me.”
Other assignments required cherubs to find and interview experts remotely. For these sources, Fogler warned against sending DMs.
“If you have to, keep your DM as brief and professional as possible,” Fogler said. “I would also give them a timeframe, so they know they need to respond.”
Anna Ryan from Orinda, California, agreed with Fogler.
“DMs are the least likely form of communication for people to respond to,” Ryan said.
Ultimately, what was most important was to not give up looking for sources after the first, fifth, and 20th rejection. After trial and error, Nguyen said she had enough sources for her Afrobeats story and did not have to pivot to her backup idea — dental veneers.
“Three interviews, after contacting 80 people for two different stories,” Nguyen said. “I had to make a story out of it somehow.”
