“Medill taught me the value of building trust with sources by calling on them not just when I needed something, but by listening to them when I didn’t. They taught me the value of rambling around a community; to better build a story from the ground up. Without these ideas, I wouldn’t have walked randomly into the Rogers Park barbershop of then-91-year-old Ben Scheinkopf. I wouldn’t have returned to sit opposite him as he clipped hair. And without this watching, listening, and learning, I wouldn’t have been able to tell Ben’s story. How he survived two years in Auschwitz by cutting hair as fully as I was able to, when I did.”
