Eight car dealers, a senior magazine editor, two Northwestern University professors, one insurance agent, an assistant horseback riding trainer and three high school students later, Esther Zuckerman, a cherub from Encino, Calif., was ready to start writing her trend story on the increase of iPod auxiliary plugs in cars.
Click here to watch a roundtable discussion
on exploring the media. Produced by Justin Schecker.
“After talking to a lot of different people, writing came like second nature because all the information was right there,” Zuckerman said.
Cherub instructor Jesse Abrams-Morley said cherubs do not realize before the program that “for every bit of writing you have to report three times as much.” Abrams-Morley said the best way to avoid the “bad luck” of not getting in touch with a source is to call so many people that someone has to call back.
Charlotte Ryan, a cherub from London, knows this from experience. She called more than 30 different allergists in and around Evanston for interviews on the rising rate of allergies, but only four got back to her.
Stephanie Ackerman, a cherub from Traverse City, Mich., said every drug company she called about the increased use of anti-depressants by Americans led her in circles.
“I was tossed around their media departments with no one really willing to answer my questions or do anything,” she said.
Abrams-Morley said cherubs are supposed to struggle. Abrams-Morley also said, however, cherubs must be open-minded if a source takes them in a new direction.
Ackerman relied largely on a CDC study to show that anti-depressants are the number one prescribed drug in America. She also talked to cherubs who had used the drugs to explain why people go on anti-depressants.
“I really didn’t know before doing this story why people went on anti-depressants. Learning about the reasons why by talking to different people, I found anti-depressants are not bad if they are used in the right way,” Ackerman said.
Abrams-Morley said that while he does not want cherubs to do a topic that is too difficult, choosing a topic that they have some interest in is key.
Amy Parlapiano, a cherub from Scarsdale, N.Y., said she had always wondered why so many people in her school went tanning. Parlapiano talked to tanners in her school, the president of the American Tanning Institute, and a state senator from Utah who had recently passed a law banning minors from tanning.
“I wanted to explore and see the tanner’s side of the story. I almost understand where teens are coming from now, but I know tanning is dangerous and I think it should stop,” Parlapiano said.
Ally Bain, a cherub from Illinois, did not know environmentally friendly houses existed until her instructor suggested she researched them instead of hybrid cars. Bain said she researched online and read a lot of articles on the subject so she knew who to interview.
She said she now knows you can do a lot of small things like installing solar panels or turning off lights to help the environment.
“I turn off lights on in the dorm late at night. I’m a lot more conscious and aware for saving bits of energy that can be used for other reasons,” Bain said.
Zuckerman said it feels nice to have a pretty broad knowledge on her subject.
“I could tell you when Toyota started putting iPod auxiliary plugs in their cars,” she said.
