{"id":3537,"date":"2022-02-27T10:41:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T15:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=3537"},"modified":"2022-03-22T15:23:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T19:23:24","slug":"earning-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2022\/earning-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Earning the Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Portrait

There were many lessons about journalism, and about humanity, that Jim Sheeler was uniquely suited to teach.
Photo by Annie O’Neill<\/p><\/div>\n

In most of Sheeler\u2019s obituaries, no one dies until the tenth paragraph. The reader gets to know the person, before learning of their death.<\/i><\/p>\n

Matt Hooke (CWR \u201920)
\n\u201cWhat the Late Jim Sheeler Taught Me\u201d
\nThe Plain Dealer<\/i> and cleveland.com
\nSept. 26, 2021<\/p>\n

When fourth-year student Aimee Wiencek<\/b> started planning her senior capstone, a research project culminating in a presentation, she never considered working with a faculty mentor other than Jim Sheeler<\/b>. He was one of the professors she had talked to before deciding to attend Case Western Reserve, and as a sophomore she had taken his introductory journalism course. To her surprise, Sheeler didn\u2019t open the course with lectures on the fundamentals of reporting. Instead, he gave the students notepads and digital recorders and sent them out into the community. For one assignment, Wiencek spent a day on the job with a groundskeeper at Lake View Cemetery, learning about his life. The experience made her less timid about approaching strangers and asking for interviews. She\u2019d come to realize, she says, that \u201cpeople want to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways, Sheeler built up Wiencek\u2019s confidence. He encouraged her to pursue a double major, combining English with her initial choice, business management. He recommended her for a public relations internship in New York and made sure she got college credit for it. He even submitted one of her stories for the English department\u2019s Arnaud Gelb Journalism Award\u2014which she won. Whatever topic she proposed for her capstone, Wiencek knew that Sheeler would be on board. \u201cIf you shared an idea or a dream with him, he would never say, \u2018Oh, you can\u2019t do that,\u2019 or \u2018That\u2019s too far-fetched.\u2019\u201d He was right there with you the whole time, helping you out and cheering you on along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

For students like Wiencek, Sheeler\u2019s approval meant a great deal. Back in 2006, he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for \u201cFinal Salute,\u201d a 12,000-word story about the families of soldiers killed in the Iraq war. While reporting the story for The Rocky Mountain News<\/em>, he shadowed a Marine major whose duty was to support these families during the early months of their bereavement. In 2010, Sheeler came to CWRU as the Shirley Wormser Professor in Journalism and Media Writing. He often invited other prominent journalists, including fellow Pulitzer Prize winners, to speak to his classes; then he\u2019d take everyone to the Barking Spider Tavern to continue the conversation.<\/p>\n

After meeting with Sheeler in the spring of 2021, Wiencek decided to interview female veterans about their experiences in the military. When American forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan last summer, she consulted him about expanding the project; she wanted to ask the veterans how the pullout was affecting them.<\/p>\n

Then, on Sept. 17, Sheeler died unexpectedly, at age 53, at his home in Chagrin Falls. English faculty members, alumni and students gathered in the Guilford House parlor to mourn and pay tribute to him. They also contributed to a flood of testimonials on social media, where journalists across the country expressed their debts to Sheeler, both for the example he set in his work and for his friendship.<\/p>\n

Wiencek pressed ahead with her capstone, aided by Associate Professor Mary Grimm<\/b> and other advisors from the English department. She welcomed their support but missed having Sheeler nearby, sharing his expertise. Late last fall, she dedicated her presentation to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to do it without him there,\u201d Wiencek says. \u201cIt was hard to stand up there and talk about this project that meant a lot to me but also to him. But I\u2019m happy I stuck with it, for his sake. He was a major part of my college experience and one of my favorite professors. He\u2019s going to stick around with me, I\u2019d say, for a while. I learned a lot from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were many lessons about journalism, and about humanity, that Sheeler was uniquely suited to teach. Early in his career, he made his mark as an obituary writer, publishing candid, meticulously crafted portraits of people who had never been featured in the newspaper before. He would spend hours talking with relatives and friends of the deceased, sitting with them in their living rooms instead of asking questions over the phone. He brought the same style of reporting to \u201cFinal Salute,\u201d which he later expanded into a book of the same name; published in 2008, it was a finalist for a National Book Award. One of Sheeler’s favorite interviewing techniques, says former student Matt Hooke<\/b> (CWR \u201920), was to jot down what someone had just said and then keep writing, as if he needed a few moments to catch up. Actually, he was giving the person time to think.<\/p>\n

\"Jim

The morning he won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for “Final Salute,” Jim Sheeler visited Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado, and paid his respects to the Marines whose families he had written about. Photo by Todd Heisler<\/p><\/div>\n

To Sheeler, journalism was all about connecting with people, says another former student, Halle Rose<\/strong> (CWR \u201920). That\u2019s why he had his students produce \u201ca day in the life\u201d stories, like the one Wiencek wrote about the groundskeeper. It\u2019s also why he saved thank-you letters from people he\u2019d interviewed. He kept the letters in a plastic bin he would bring to class the first week of the semester. At some point, he\u2019d reach into the heap of pages and draw out his Pulitzer trophy\u2014a glass sphere he\u2019d show the students and then toss back into the bin. \u201cAwards are always nice to get,\u201d he\u2019d concede. But then, as Rose remembers it, he\u2019d gather up an armful of the letters and say: \u201cThis is why you do the work. You do it to build the relationships. You do it to make sure people\u2019s stories get told; you do it to make sure the stories get told right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forging connections was as central to Sheeler\u2019s teaching as it was to his reporting. He had his students call him \u201cJim,\u201d not \u201cProfessor Sheeler.\u201d He gave out his cell number. He turned each class into a community of writers who felt comfortable sharing their work with one another. He served as faculty advisor to The Observer,<\/em> CWRU\u2019s campus newspaper, and guided alumni as they started their careers.<\/p>\n

Some of those alumni have become professional journalists. Hooke, a former executive editor of The Observer, <\/i>now works for two affiliated newspapers in Delaware and Maryland. When he isn\u2019t covering school board meetings and other local news, he writes feature-length obituaries.<\/p>\n

Rose, on the other hand, is now a master\u2019s candidate in social work and public health at CWRU. But in her interactions with clients and communities, she still follows the principle Sheeler modeled for his journalism students: Don\u2019t expect people to open up to you until you have shown your commitment to them and won their trust. <\/i>As he often said, \u201cYou have to earn the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheeler\u2019s faculty colleagues gratefully speak of his extraordinary service to the English department\u2014as associate chair and director of undergraduate studies, and as a volunteer whenever anything needed to be done. For years, he represented the department at open houses for prospective students, inviting those who were avid readers or writers to Guilford House. \u201cHe would just take them to faculty members\u2019 offices and say, \u2018Here\u2019s a prospective student who\u2019s really interested in your area. Would you be willing to talk to them?\u2019\u201d Grimm recalls. \u201cAnd, of course, we always were. He took this great delight in getting people who were passionate about a subject to talk to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

At his first newspaper, Sheeler did a stint as a music critic, and once he settled in Cleveland, he and Professor Christopher Flint<\/b> often went to concerts together. Invariably, one or two of Sheeler\u2019s students would emerge from the crowd, seeking him out. \u201cJim liked indie bands, and he would go backstage every time,\u201d Flint recalls. \u201cThen he\u2019d come walking back, brandishing a vinyl record or some knickknack, and he\u2019d have some scoop about the band. He was clearly still doing the beat, still getting the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Sheeler\u2019s death, Distinguished University Professor Thrity Umrigar <\/b>reread an email he once sent to several of his friends, inviting them to join him at a concert by the gospel singer Mavis Staples. \u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned,\u201d he wrote, \u201cMavis and her music are some of the rhythmic superglue holding this world together, and I appreciate you all accompanying me to hold on and sing along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing him, Umrigar says: \u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, Jimmy was the superglue that held many people\u2019s worlds together, including mine. He loved his wife, Annick, and his son, James, with an uncommon passion, and he cared equally about all of his students. He was Everyman and he was brilliant. He exuded joy and hopefulness and optimism and enthusiasm. His favorite words were \u2018fantastic\u2019 and \u2018absolutely.\u2019 That\u2019s a good range within which to build a happy life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In most of Sheeler\u2019s obituaries, no one dies until the tenth paragraph. The reader gets to know the person, before learning of their death.<\/i>
\nMatt Hooke (CWR \u201920)
\n\u201cWhat the Late Jim Sheeler Taught Me\u201d
\nThe Plain Dealer<\/i> and cleveland.com
\nSept. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":3679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2022\/02\/01110745\/Sheeler_thumbnail.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3537"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3790,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions\/3790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}