<![CDATA[Matthew Fleckenstein - Blog]]>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:15:33 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[For the love of newspapers]]>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:53:53 GMThttps://www.matthewfleckenstein.com/thoughtsofmatthew/for-the-love-of-newspapersI love newspapers, but I never actually get one to read. Perhaps that’s part of the problem in this world where news is instantaneous. Local newspapers have to find ways to stay around and keep doing the important work of informing the communities they report on. I saw one story of a little town paper that is still running because it works with a restaurant. The money from the restaurant goes to the paper, the offices are upstairs and the reporters regularly interact with the community by working and holding offices in the restaurant downstairs. And it’s not just newspapers, in Detroit, Local4/WDIV is opening a coffee shop. Both of those ideas seem like great ways to keep local journalism alive and also regain trust with the community. In Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution got rid of its print edition altogether to go completely digital.

But it’s not just staying informed that newspapers are good at. I read an article awhile back about all the other uses for newspapers, like wrapping gifts and animal shelters lining cages. In college we would drop off our old newspapers to the Indianapolis Zoo.
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Which brings me to another reason newspapers are nostalgic for me, I learned how to be a journalist with them. In college at The Butler Collegian and high school at The Tower, even middle and elementary schools. School papers are my journalism training. There’s also something different about seeing stories printed versus online or in a newscast, it’s a different feeling of satisfaction that is hard to explain. It’s also an easier and more tangible way to see your hard work without needing a television or computer.
I don’t think newspapers will necessarily make a comeback (although anything’s possible – look at vinyl). Instead they’ll have to adjust and find ways to work in this new age, like the restaurant newsrooms. I don’t know how it will play out but I’m excited to be a part of the future of local news.
That slow fade, it turns out, means more than changing news habits. It speaks directly to the newspaper’s presence in our lives — not just in terms of the information printed upon it, but in its identity as a physical object with many other uses. - MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is now all-digital. This is a frame from a story Joshua Skinner did for Atlanta News First on the last print edition.
]]><![CDATA[Take the long road]]>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:29:15 GMThttps://www.matthewfleckenstein.com/thoughtsofmatthew/take-the-long-roadLast weekend I decided to go on a search for fall foliage. So I packed up my camera bag, filled a water bottle, grabbed some snacks and hit the road. I plug in my first destination and off I go. It takes me on surface streets all the way there. Now, Atlanta is notoriously known for bad traffic and because of that I didn’t think much of not going on a highway. It added to the adventure and it was a beautiful day so I didn’t really mind.

My first destination was Georgia’s smallest state park, up in the mountains. While it has a beautiful lake overlook, it’s mostly a giant campground. I circled the campground then went to a trailhead across the street where I follow a single lane dirt road to where it says a waterfall is. I park, get out and hike to the waterfall – success, fall colors found! I get to the waterfall, enjoy the view and hike back to the car. From there I follow the twist and turns of the road to a scenic overlook to stop by where I get out, take some pictures, eat a snack and just simply enjoy the view before plugging in my next destination: Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak. More twist and turns as I head to the mountain, and even more as I drive to the top. I park at the trailhead and prepare for the “short but steep” hike to the summit, a very accurate description from the range. I walk around the observation deck, take more photos and admire the view.
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I twist and turn down the mountain, stopping at the bottom to plug my home address into the GPS. It starts on more backroads and surface streets, and it’s still a nice, early evening so I don’t mind. Now, even with Atlanta’s bad traffic, by the time I reached the metro area it was late enough to not have to worry about it, but the GPS still said to avoid the highway it had just put me on, so I got off thinking it was avoiding a crash and would put me back on. After it missed several opportunities to get back on the highway it occurred to me, I had turned off the “highways” option for work. I couldn’t be angry about it and just had to laugh, and honestly, I’m glad it took me the long way because it let me see the fall foliage that I was searching for.
]]><![CDATA[Make what you want]]>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 19:56:07 GMThttps://www.matthewfleckenstein.com/thoughtsofmatthew/make-what-you-wantA fundamental principle of being creative is making whatever you want to make. That doesn’t mean not taking paid jobs, you need paid jobs to be able to make what you want. But making sure that when you’re making things in your free time, the five to nine hours, you make the most of it and are making things that you actually want to make.

For instance, I have a waffle machine. It is one of the best things I’ve ever bought. Waffles are easy to make, they taste good (unless you burn them, only done that a few times) and it’s easy to mix them up (eat them plain, with fruit, with syrup). So when I was making waffles one day, I had an idea, why not make a video about it? And I did, for no other reason than I wanted to (and perhaps a little boredom from being home so much these days). Is it the most insightful video I’ve ever made? Absolutely not. Do I like it? Am I proud of it? 100 percent. For this simple video, all I did was grab my camera, shoot it and edit it… in a morning (and as a bonus, I got a meal out of it).

Find something you enjoy and start making, start doing, just have fun. Test out different ideas, different styles of whatever art you make. Release yourself from your own self criticism (because we truly are our harshest critics) and just create. I happen to like cooking, it’s something that’s fun to do. You can experiment, you can follow a recipe, you can combine recipes, you can cook a meal with friends, for friends, by yourself. It is such a versatile skill and something that is great for when you’re with people. Food is a unifier. So why wouldn’t I want to make a videos about how to make simple recipes (perhaps working my way up to more elaborate ones over time) that encourage people to cook and then share what they learned with their friends.

Ultimately when you create some piece of art, be it photography, video, a painting, a poem, a meal (yes, a meal can be art… anything can be art but that is a topic for another blog post) and you share it with the world, you want it to leave an impact. Even if you impact just one person… that makes a project worth it.
]]><![CDATA[An underappreciated art]]>Fri, 10 Apr 2020 15:41:42 GMThttps://www.matthewfleckenstein.com/thoughtsofmatthew/an-underappreciated-artPicture

Take a look at this picture, what do you see? A scale model of a wall with a fireplace.

Look closer.

Dark stained wood trim … green wallpaper with a peacock pattern on it… intricate molding and fireplace surround… a sconce on the wall… candlesticks on the mantel.

Now put these details in context of a play, they all add up to tell a story. In this case, that story answers a question:  Mrs. Peacock… in the study… with a candlestick.

This wall panel is for a theoretical play based on the game of Clue. But it illustrates how important the set is to any theatrical production.


The set is one of the most important pieces of a production and often gets overlooked in smaller productions. It is the place that your characters spend all their time, the place they live in, work in, and play in. A good set is a character of its own. You have to make it feel real. An office should feel worked in… a home lived in (unless the character just moved in). The details are what give a set character. A childhood photo of the lead actor on the wall of the family house. A desk knick-knack on a police captain’s desk from her days on the street.

The popular ABC police procedural Castle had a man whose sole job was to create the whiteboards where the team laid out what happened in a crime. Republic of Doyle recreated a popular St. John’s, Newfoundland bar “The Duke” for the show on CBC. Look at the homes of your favorite television or movie characters, the small details that makes it feel like these characters actually live there.

Anyone can put four chairs around a table and call it a dining room set. But that doesn’t feel real, even if it’s a nice room with a nice dining room table and chairs. What is so amazing is how a great set feels so realistic, feels like the family is actually living in that house or that police captain who has been in the same office for 26 years. I want to learn how to make a set feel like a home, feel like it is lived in. It’s fascinating and something I am truly in awe of.
]]><![CDATA[What is "truth"]]>Sun, 05 Apr 2020 19:11:20 GMThttps://www.matthewfleckenstein.com/thoughtsofmatthew/what-is-truthHello.  My name is Ross; I am from Brussels, Belgium, and have lived across the United States.  I was a soccer player for a few years, dabbled in mathematics and attended some classes at Michigan State University. 

Hello. My name is Matthew; I am from the Detroit area of Michigan.  I love basically any activity in the outdoors. I am a videographer and photographer and a proud Butler University grad.

Both of the above statements are true in some respect.  However, the second would be considered truer than the first.  My middle name is Ross, my relatives are from Belgium, I have lived across the United States in that my family moved to Atlanta for two years when I was in elementary school, I played soccer for two years when I was in pre-school and kindergarten and was required to take math courses all throughout primary school.  And I have gone to Michigan State University to take classes as part of a summer journalism workshop while I was in high school. 

The point is that while all that may be true, there are many different versions of the same truth...

everything has some truth based in it; one just has to find it. 

Truth changes, albeit slowly, but it does change.  It used to be true that the planet Earth was flat, but then people realized that was the wrong “truth.”

The reason for stories being deemed “true” is  based upon the widely held facts and generalizations that support it.

So then, what is truth? 

Merriam Webster says there are nine different definitions of the word “true” and four definitions of the word “truth.”  With so many different definitions of one concept is it possible that one is the actual definition or that the truth is even true? 

All around the world, there are going to be different truths, all of them based similar subjects yet all different none the less.  With all these truths, it is fair to say that there really is nothing that is true and nothing that is false, it is all subjective to what one believes.

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