While covering a story about the Fourth of July during an election year, Ariel Rothfield spotted two sources she thought would be perfect for the story.

Two girls, ages five and seven, were selling lemonade for donations to Barack Obama’s campaign.

The only problem was 87 other cherubs from the journalism program at the National High School Institute were after the same story.

“I was able to interview the two little girls, but when I asked their dad, he said he already had three people talk to him,” Rothfield, of Weston, Fla., said.

Instructor John Kupetz said finding good sources at the Fourth of July parade was simply a challenge.

“Whoever got there first got the interview,” he said. “You get the best stuff when a source is talking fresh.”

Grace Altman, of Scarsdale, N.Y., said she was the first reporter to speak to a few of her sources during the assignment.

.“It’s nice to have exclusive quotes from someone because it distinguishes your article,” she said.

Emilia Barrosse had planned to interview the executive director of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce for a story. But when she arrived, he was unavailable. She returned after an hour, but his secretary said another student had just interviewed him and he could only speak to one reporter that day.

“I felt like crap,” Barrosse, of Los Angeles, said. “I felt like I had worked so hard for absolutely nothing and it came back to bite me in the butt. Hard work did not pay off.”

In the future, Barrosse said she would call ahead and schedule interviews or do more reporting over the phone before others have the opportunity to net interviews with her sources.

Lucy Jackson went into one store to do an interview and ended up waiting about 20 minutes because another cherub was already speaking to the source.

“I tried to call ahead at a lot of places, but a lot of kids just hit the ground running,” Jackson, of Los Angeles, said. “Store owners did not respect the fact that some of us called ahead.”

Finding a unique angle also helps.

“If you want your story to be unique, you can take an interesting angle and try to interview different types of people,” Altman said.

Although Rothfield was turned down for an interview by the young Obama supporters’ father, she was able to talk to less obvious sources.

“I was able to go up to people who I thought no one would interview,” Rothfield said.