Conquering New Media: Interview with FLYPmedias's Lindsey Schneider

FLYPmedia is a news magazine Web site that takes news and transforms it into interactive internet storytelling. It started as a satellite project from a Mexican Web site, Indigo, in March of 2008, and has completely revamped the way journalists tell stories.

Lindsey Schneider has been with FLYP almost since it's birth. She claims she's the copy editor, but in the world of new news, that means she also writes, films, manages projects and codes HTML.

Jessica Ernst: How did people initially respond to FLYP when you launched it?

Lindsey Schneider: The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I think people are kind of looking for something new on the web and I think what FLYP attempts to do is that new thing that everyone kind of sees as the next thing. It seems like people kind of like it.

JE: How did you market yourselves?

LS: Mostly we just let the audience come to us, and it’s like I said, it’s just been overwhelmingly positive. We’re at about 25,000 subscribers and a couple thousand hits a day. People are seriously reading and staying on the site for a while.

JE: FLYP says it’s both a magazine and a news website, how do you think those elements are combined?

LS: It’s a hard thing to create a magazine with an issue format online just because all of the other news magazines are doing a different thing. Even print magazines when they post online on their websites, the websites end up looking like a blank HTML page with a bunch of text and maybe they’ll stick on a little video button. But it’s not really a magazine. And so, what we tried to do was think of the magazine, or even individual stories, as these little experience packages.

Everything meshes together. We’re trying to be a magazine in that, up until recently, we came out every other week with an issue. And we’re still working through how to make those issues have the same rhythm and details that a normal print magazine has, and I think we’re almost getting there.

JE: How do your news stories differ form a traditional news web Site?

LS: We can’t do breaking news because we can’t turn around a story in two days, it takes us like a week. We have to design it, find the good photos, and write it and do the video and animation and all that means designing time, exporting time, integrating time.

It’s not merely writing a story and adding multimedia to it and integrating it, it’s more about building that story idea from the start within this multifaceted media approach. We’ve gotten a lot of interest from a lot of different major publications out there, major news groups, and I’m interested in seeing how they would do this in a breaking news format.

JE: How does print, or does it even, influence what you report on?

LS: I wrote a story a really long time ago. The editor in chief at the time had seen a feature story in the New York Times magazine and she was like, ‘No, they just didn’t do the media right. It doesn’t work in print.’ And so, we did that story over again with multimedia and just liked it so much better.

JE: Where do you find your story ideas and how do you decide how you are going to publish them and what media you are going to use?

LS: Most of my story ideas come from other people on staff or freelancers that give us story ideas and then we develop them. We try to pick story ideas that print mediums can’t do or couldn’t do as well as that story needs to be told.

Recently we did this story on this group called The Magician’s Table, and it’s this group of magicians that have been having lunch together every Friday in New York City. That could not be told in print. It had to be told in video with them doing their tricks.

JE: How long does it usually take you to create a story?

LS: Well, it depends on the story. Sometimes it could take up to two weeks and sometimes it could take four days, not including the leave reporting time. You take reporting time out, which could take up to six months.

We can turn out a story in two days, but it might not have all the multimedia elements that we choose.

JE: What do you think news media will look like ten years from now?

LS: I personally am a big print person, I like books and I like holding books. I could never have a kindle, ever.

I think that there’s an opening out there for something that’s like FLYP but better. I don’t think that print is gunna die; I think print is struggling. But I think print is struggling because it’s unable to grapple with its own problems.

There are instances where it would be perfectly legitimate for someone to move online and start something like FLYP or something like Departures. I don’t know, you can never really say.

Obviously the media’s in a crisis moment. I think video is almost the key. I think video is where it’s all gunna go. Everyone’s already migrating to web video. Who doesn’t watch Hulu? I think that online short documentary journalism is the future.

Photo Credit: Lindsey Schneider

Media Representations of Women and Violence

Evaluating Tucker Max's latest movie in light of Domestic Violence Awareness month.

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Students Protest Denial of Tenure to Depaul Professor

DePaul University professor Dr. Melissa Bradshaw was denied tenure last spring, prompting students to protest the decision claiming that it was unfair and that Bradshaw is vital to both the Women's and Gender Studies and Queer Studies Departments.

Listen to my most recent podcast detailing the issue.

Mashups Allow for Access to Information Anytime, Anywhere

Mashup Web sites like Everyblock and Politifact tell informative stories. They are like search engine meets news feed meets Wikipedia, but more fun to read.

Each site has a particular theme: crime rate, restaurant reviews, geographical histories. All you have to do is type a location and the site provides all the information, mashed together, so you don’t have to scour the Web to find it.

With This We Know, anyone can look up population demographic statistics, information on pollutants in the air, the number of factories and the number of unemployed for any area in the United States.

According the to the site, “36 Bills have been introduced about [Chicago] by 16 Members of Congress since 1993.”

The tweet-style blurbs even link off for more in-depth information. I can learn about the bills and the members who introduced them.

The site also tells me that, “45% of people relocated in the past 15 years.” Unfortunately, the site can only tell me the numbers.

What it can’t tell me is who left and why they left. This they don't know.

Despite some minor flaws, mashups can be a useful tool for journalists. The access to information means quick fact-checking capabilities.

Anyone can use these sites without the burden of finding questionable information. Much like encyclopedias, you can pick one out based on its specialty and find everything you wanted to know on that topic, without worrying about verifying the information.

It’s been done already for you because most of the sites are run by reliable organizations.

This We Know and govpulse, a journal for the federal government, are run by the U.S. government. Everyblock is run by a team of journalists and web developers. The site is owned by msnbc.

Since the stories told on mashups are not reported by journalists, they provide a new way of storytelling. The straight-to-the-facts style of information is without the fluff of opinion or bias.

I might not find why 45% of Chicagoans have relocated in the past 15 years, but I am free from the hearstring-pulling stories that may have happened as a result, the interviews and the conflict.

Mashup sites are pure uninhibited information. The can be accessed anytime day or night, not just when a journalist finds the information relevent to an upcoming story.

With laptops and smart phones everywhere these days, information and news are even bigger than journalists, reporting, newspapers, magazines and broadcasts. Mashups truly put information in the hands of the people.

Robberies and Beatings in Lincoln Park

Seven robberies and beatings have been reported by Chicago police in the Lincoln Park area. All attacks occurred between July 30 and August 4.

The victims of the attacks were all men in their 20's. The perpetrators were also described as young men in groups of four or more who confronted the victims from behind, asked for their wallets, then proceeded to beat the victims in the head and face.

Two of the victims were hospitalized.

Four of the attacks are believed to be linked, while two may be unrelated. Police have made no arrests.

Details of the attacks including location, date and time:

The Wave of the Future?

FLYPmedia.com advertises itself as a new form of media that combines video, audio, text and animation, making it more than just an online magazine, but a peek into the future of reporting.

The bi-weekly "publication" offers stories on a variety of topics including technology, politics and human interest. The site also offers blogs and podcasts that subscribe to a more traditional form of online reporting. The combination of all of these recourses makes for one interactive experience.

Unlike some news Web sites, articles on FLYP are not just online versions copied from print articles. These stories are made specifically for the Web. CNN and The Washington Post might have videos to accompany their stories, but FLYP has everything mashed into a cohesive form of online storytelling.

You won't find their stories on your average news Web site.

But you also won't find anything but in-depth feature stories and opinions. If you're looking for fast breaking news, then you've come to the wrong place.

Even though FLYP may provide one of the most interesting news mediums, don't give up on old media just yet. Posting news stories in the form of text with some links and sparse videos makes news quick, easy and accessible. If readers expected all news to look like FLYP news, we would experience an information lag, not the immediacy that the Web provides.

Also, for those who work in offices, the audio and video may not be a welcome addition. Written stories don't require as much privacy to read, and of course, they are easier to scroll when looking for quick facts.

FLYP may be looking towards the future, but it’s going to take some time for the rest of us to catch up.

Rose's in Lincoln Park

Located in Lincoln Park on Lincoln Avenue near Wrightwood is a family-owned dive bar called Rose's.

The bar is a hodge-podge of kitchen tables, old chairs, worn couches, a pool table and a juke box filled with Sinatra and Cash hits as well as more contemporary, but random, music.

The eclectic decoration of outdated posters, photographs, trinkets and statues gives any bar-goer the feeling of transcending decades. The bar has been around for over 40 years.

While the drink list is limited, the drinks are cheap, and anyone who sits at the bar can expect to have a conversation with the bartenders, most of which are Rose’s family members.

This bar is great for anyone looking for a low-key night or a place to chat. Because the bar is small, you can expect to meet at least a few people and share a beer or two. You can also expect an ample supply of pretzels and tortilla chips compliments of the bartender.

Check it out on Yelp.