Online Journalism 363

Interview: Dodai Stewart of Jezebel.com

2009-11-05T14:11:00.040-06:00

In recent years, women's magazines have been experiencing a decline in readers, and, subsequently, sales. Magazine covers are strewn with women from popular culture who are obviously (and usually grotesquely) Photoshopped, sometimes way beyond recognition or possibility.

The ubiquitous sexualization and objectification of women is an issue that is now being addressed and taken seriously. Women are becoming increasingly more vocal in their quest for equality and to take down the current patriarchal society.

So, how is it possible to entertain and enlighten without being offensive to women?

This is where Jezebel.com and one of the 10 women who write for the site, Deputy Editor Dodai Stewart, comes in.

A part of Gawker Media, based in New York City, the blog serves as an online platform where judgment is scarce and various topics concerning women in national and global spotlights are spoken about in-depth. From covering fashion events to speaking out against the inequalities women face, Jezebel presents a healthy and lively social commentary from both the blog's writers and commenters.

With a past strongly rooted in fiction – she participated in high school musical theatre and was a screenwriting-major in college – Stewart tackles popular culture and current events concisely and with humor.

"[Jezebel] mixes style commentary and gossip with no-holds-barred posts about politics, the economy, sexism and, certainly, sex," according to Lauren Lipton of The New York Times. “Like a digital-age upgrade of Sassy, the 1990s-era indie-feminist teenage magazine, Jezebel appeals to a young, urban demographic, with a roster of editors whose strong voices inspire loyal followings."

Jezebel describes itself as, "a blog for women that will attempt to take all the essentially meaningless but sweet stuff directed our way and give it a little more meaning, while taking more the serious stuff and making it more fun, or more personal, or at the very least the subject of our highly sophisticated brand of sex joke."

The site's intro page for Stewart states, "In addition to lending her carefully-calibrated meter for pop culture bullshit to the site, Dodai will be working on fashion stories for Jezebel and indulging in her obsession of magazines, mainstream and otherwise."

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Q: What have your previous career experiences been?

A: The first job that I had was at a company that represented directors and photographers. It wasn’t a film agency, but an agency to promote directors who create commercials. One of the representatives in the photography department had a sister working in a magazine and she [the rep] always saw a stack of magazines on my desk. I’m such a magazine junkie.

I ended up working as an office manager at This Old House magazine then became an editorial assistant. After that, I moved to Entertainment Weekly, as well as bounced around at different magazines like Jane, YM and Modern Bride. I also worked at a teen magazine, J14, for about 7 years. The teen magazine didn’t have a diet or health section; it was purely entertainment. As a frustrated screenwriter and a very big film fan, writing about movies was something I really enjoyed and I was trying to carve out something. I really wanted to work online because I felt that it was blooming and blossoming. After blogging for a little while, I answered an ad for Gawker Media and got a job writing for Jezebel.

Q: How long have you been working for Jezebel?

A: I started working for Jezebel in July 2007. The website began in May [of the same year] with three people. Coming from magazines and, because [Editor-in-Chief] Anna worked in magazines as well, I think that the intent of the site is that Jezebel is the magazine people who work with [print] magazines want to see, work for, or just wish a magazine could be. In the [print] magazines I worked for, I had to edit myself, but with Jezebel, I’m not held back so much.

Q: What is your typical workday like?

A: I start at 6:30 a.m. or 7 a.m., depending on the day. I start really early on Mondays and later in the morning on Fridays. It takes anywhere from 2-3 hours to read through all of the links, scan and read them, and then write commentary. Some things are due at 9 a.m., the next at 11 a.m. and then again between 1-2 p.m. or 3-4 p.m. Sometimes, I end before 5 p.m. I end later than that if I have a television show to cover.

Q: What’s the difference between your other jobs and working for Jezebel?

A: Working at a magazine, it [the job] was more collaborative – meeting the art department, photo department and fact-checking people. There’s none of that with Jezebel because everyone works from home. Also, in an office you get up and go to the water cooler or wherever else, and here, there’s no reason to get up and go. There’s no set break because everyone is doing her own thing.

Q: What do you want to bring to your readers?
A: I think it’s pretty straightforward how I put my personality into my articles. We’re [Jezebel/Gawker Media] an aggregate, which is why I don’t think of this as journalism. We’re just digesting the information and spitting it back out – it’s ‘read this, read that’ and then critique it as you would with your friends. Part of my duties, in addition to writing and putting up pictures, are to read other people’s posts for content and clarity.

Q:You mentioned that you don’t think of blogging as journalism, could you expand on that?
A: I think that blogging is an interesting concept that needs more exploration. It’s interesting that blogging is immediate. I’m not the be-all and end-all authority on it and, I think that everyone can have a blog and write their opinion, but that’s not what journalism is. Journalism is about reporting the facts and being objective.

Q: What are your thoughts on the future of magazines?
A: I appreciate magazines and I’m still a magazine junkie. I think a magazine is a very pleasurable experience when they are beautifully and well done and are interesting. There are so many magazines … I don’t think they’re really necessary. I do think that for those magazines that have gone online, it’s probably a good thing to have a life online because it’s not a waste of paper. If someone is really interested in something, then they’ll pay for it. We’re living in an era where there are too many magazines and, possibly, they’re correcting themselves now.

[Photo provided by Dodai Stewart]

Mashups: A new kind of database.

2009-10-01T14:27:00.002-05:00

When wanting to find out statistical information about my neighborhood, the state, or the nation as a whole, I look towards a mashup.

A mashup features information pulled together from many different sources so that everything can be viewed in a conveniently packaged database. Bike rack installations, foreclosure auction results, restaurant inspections, how many toothless residents are in a particular area, as well as whether the current POTUS has been keeping up with promises made to better the country … whatever information is on public record, you can likely find it through a mashup.

EveryBlock.com is all about keeping up to date with what’s happening in neighborhoods around the nation. Featuring 15 major cities, EveryBlock.com posts various types of news: civic information, news articles, blog entries and miscellaneous content from around the Internet (local Flickr photos, reviews from Yelp and Craigslist postings).

Some mashups like the aforementioned EveryBlock.com are created by someone who wants to put out a database for the public, and some mashups are federally regulated, like govpulse.us, which is a Federal Register, a self-proclaimed “official journal of the federal government of the United States.” The Federal Register is updated daily and published Monday through Friday. The entries consist of presidential documents, rules and regulations, proposed rules and notices.

Other mashups are put out by media outlets. PolitiFact.com is a mashup created by the St. Petersburg Times in Tampa Bay, Florida. This year the site won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for fact-checking through statements made during the 2008 presidential campaign. Now, the site follows President Obama’s campaign promises to see if he has held up to them while in office as well as statements made by other figures in the government.

There is even a Website for users to mashup whatever data they choose. According to DataMasher.org, “The Federal Government produces an immeasurable amount of data each day. DataMasher helps citizens have a little fun with those data by creating mashups to visualize them in different ways and see how states compare on important issues.”

Mashups are becoming an important contributing factor to the development of online journalism because now, journalists and bloggers, as well as people wanting to seek out facts for the hell of it, are able to easily access databases where information is aplenty. This information can help supplement a story or an article, or even improve someone's daily life (especially if they're looking for a place to secure their bike).

Flippin' for FLYP Media.

2009-09-22T02:43:00.003-05:00

Before being introduced to FLYP Media, I was under the assumption that print media will soon become a tool of the past and that the Internet will completely replace newspapers and magazines as the world heads towards a more modern (and economic) state. After all, I am freshly new to the journalism scene and for the past few months I have been hearing and reading never-ending snippets about how the print media industry is dying out or going "Out of Print."

I thought, “Fine. Let the newspapers and magazines fade out. Surely some better form of news communication will become available.” But I never really gave much thought as to what that new and improved form of print media could be.

Except, now, I know.

Enter the world of FLYP Media, “a dynamic online, multimedia magazine that combines text, video, audio, animation and interactivity into a new kind of storytelling,” according to ‘What is FLYP?,’ the site’s introductory page.

FLYP labels itself as “More Than A Magazine,” and this multimedia machine certainly does hold up to its motto.

In the center of the screen is a feature in which you scroll through the various articles and photo-essays – from a spotlight on magicians to views about the healthcare debate to exploring mysterious deep-seas. FLYP has all areas touched upon with different topic sections: art, technology, politics, movies, and more! The layout on this feature is one that reminds me of TIME Magazine’s articles with the way powerful images are juxtaposed with well-written commentary although it is conveniently packaged as a page on my computer screen.

So, as I am perusing through all that FLYP has to offer, I realise that this is the future of print media.

FLYP combines the aesthetic feel (and even sounds!) of flipping through the pages of an actual magazine as well as the sense of online-interactivity with comment boxes under the text of main articles and its various blogs, podcasts, and RSS feeds.

Catering to both print and online media enthusiasts, FLYP Media is definitely working all the right angles, and I am sure, as its popularity increases, other media outlets will be taking a leaf or two from this online magazine's interactive webpages.