Graduation: Jim Sheeler (MA ’07) starts Pulitzer Prize-winning career on obit desk

Jim Sheeler (MA ’07), SJMC Scholar-in-Residence, delivered the commencement speech on Dec. 18, 2008. His entire speech is posted at www.colorado.edu/Journalism /alumni/Sheelercommencement.html. Here are some excerpts:

In the past 15 years I’ve interviewed rock stars and congress people, I’ve interviewed millionaires and celebrities, but I don’t remember those conversations – nothing stands out. The scenes that stay with me – the ones I’ve truly learned from – are the quiet moments, the moments that teach and offer up an everyday wisdom that speaks to us all.

When I started as an obituary writer, I didn’t want to write obituaries with the same formulaic style that most newspapers used. I didn’t want to write about famous people – I wanted the stories that hadn’t been told – people whose names had never appeared in the newspaper. I discovered this early on in my career, as I worked at the place most journalists dread, the Siberia of the newsroom – the obituary desk. It wasn’t long before I realized that if you listen, really listen, it’s a place filled with that shared knowledge. No matter what field of mass communication you’re headed for, take people someplace they’ve never been, someplace they can learn something, and they’ll come with you every time.

One of those places, for me, was a man’s home in Boulder, a few days after he had lost his wife to breast cancer. We sat together and he told me that a few days after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was reading the newspaper and on the front page there was an inane story about politicians squabbling about some petty issue. Remember this was just a few days after she was diagnosed. She threw down the paper and shook her head in frustration. “These people need cancer,” she said. “Not enough to kill them, but just enough to make them realize what’s important in life.” Then her husband looked at me and said, “You know, it’s not that there’s too much cancer in the world – it’s just that it’s poorly distributed.”