In a recent piece at the Columbia Journalism Review, financial columnist Dean Starkman looked at what he described as a “meltdown” in longform reporting, which he defined as stories that are longer than 2,000 words. According to numbers compiled by the CJR writer, newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times published 85 percent fewer long stories last year than they did about a decade ago, and Starkman argued that this decline amounts to a very real “loss in public knowledge.” But is this decline really something to be concerned about, or is longform journalism just evolving?
As Starkman notes in his column, the fact that longer stories have declined at newspapers like the L.A. Times shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: Tribune Co., the owner of the Times, filed for bankruptcy several years ago and the chain has been struggling ever since (the Los Angeles paper and many of the company’s other assets are said to be for sale). The Washington Post, where CJR says longform stories were down by about 50 percent from 2003, and the New York Times — down by 25 percent, according to Starkman — have also been suffering from an industry-wide dropoff in ad revenue.
More resources on fewer stories isn’t necessarily bad
In that context, publishing fewer long stories seems like a fairly natural response to a shortage of income, and a need to print fewer pages on expensive newsprint. It’s also worth noting that the cash-strapped New York Times has actually published more stories that are 3,000 words and longer than it did in 2003 — 32 percent more, according to the CJR’s numbers. And the newspaper got some well-deserved acclaim for the way it handled the online version of one of those stories: namely, the Snowfall feature it released as an online series and an e-book late last year.
The Times‘ Snowfall feature helps to make one point that Starkman’s bleak assessment of the industry avoids, and that is the fact that longform journalism is evolving away from the traditional newspaper-based publishing that his numbers focus on. As the spokesman for the L.A. Times noted in a response to CJR, much of the paper’s feature coverage now includes video, graphics and other elements that wouldn’t have been present a decade ago — and don’t show up in a raw word count.
“In recent years, our longform storytelling has also typically incorporated unique videos and photo galleries. The two media – print and pixels – are seamlessly integrated in a way that a Factiva search can’t capture.”
As journalism professor Jeff Jarvis pointed out in a response to Starkman’s original post on Twitter, simple length is not a determinant of overall quality in newspaper features (and to be fair, the CJR writer admits as much in the first few paragraphs of his piece). In many cases, those longer features that were published a decade ago may have been overly generous — or indulged in only because they make good “award bait,” as one former newspaper colleague of mine described them.
Papers aren’t the only source of longform journalism
If newspapers like the Post, the Times and the Wall Street Journal are being more judicious with their use of space, and trying to devote the time and resources to fewer long pieces that provide more value, that’s arguably a good thing. And Starkman’s diagnosis also focuses (not surprisingly perhaps) on newspapers in a vacuum — essentially ignoring all of the innovation that is occurring in longform journalism outside that industry, through services like Byliner, Longreads and Atavist.
The magazine-style features that Byliner has become known for, or the longform pieces that readers share through Longreads may not replace the missing newspaper features one-for-one, but they are clearly filling a need. That need also becomes obvious when you look at some of the most-saved articles at “read it later” services like Pocket — many of them are long features from magazines and other outlets (although whether those who save such pieces ever get around to reading them is another question).
In other words, newspapers are playing on a much broader field than they used to. And all that competition makes it even more important that they focus their time and energy on features that can really come alive online, the way Snowfall did for the NYT — and if that means fewer words in fewer pieces, then perhaps that is for the best.
Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Jan Arief Purwanto, as well as the Columbia Journalism Review and Shutterstock / Ruggiero Scardigno
As said in previous comments reading habits have changed. Many people look for reads to be short and straight to the point. People attention spans have shortened as well because there are so many other things that can distract them on the web. Therefore journalist have to go with what works best for their audiences.
It seems newsworthiness is not directly proportional to the length of an article. There comes a point when the article dissipates into an editorial and readers don’t find a need to listen to self important (journalists?) opinions.
Bob Zack
A well-written story is a well-written story. Too much longform journalism these days shows sloppy writing and poor editing.
Long form isn’t for reporting in my book. It is best for either publishing the results of large investigative journalism or for extended analysis and opinion.
I love long form journalism which is why I am such an avid reader of The Atlantic.
I only wish there was a better tradition of high quality long form journalism here in Australia.
In the past it was the news magazines, the the newspapers that provided the best platform for long form. Time, Newsweek, and here in Oz The Bulletin.
I still seek out good long form.
What isn’t discussed here is the effect of atomising publication. When I bought a copy of Time I would read every word of some articles and skip over others – especially local stuff on sports in the USA. But the publishers really only knew that I subscribed. The weekly sale was what told them I was interested.
Today’s online publishing system provide audience feedback at the article level. It was always the case that more long form articles were flicked through than read in depth.
And the shorter the article the more likely it will be read in total by visitors. This distribution is not actually a certain indicator of interest – but also of effort.
Now the signal is there and those who run the platforms are interpreting stay and click as reader satisfaction. Not so.
The most asinine comment in this article is the implication that “features that can really come alive online” may be characterised by less effort and fewer words.
What makes a piece come alive – even on the web – is the skill, thinking and word-craft of the author.
The key problem is the fact that reading habits changed over the last years and most newspapers completely failed to adopt to a changing market. From my perspective this has nothing to do with paper vs. digital formats… it’s rather about the way and the format information are presented…
Give a shout out anyone who actually read through this article.
Throughout the read, my mind wanted to tear me off to some other unknown destination of the Web. I think I have been burned so many times by longform articles — especially on the Web — that just drag on and on without adding any more information. I am very hesitant to continue reading beyond the first few paragraphs of an article.
Haha. This is like saying that because dinosaurs don’t eat leaves anymore, no one does. CJR is taking the opportunity to study the bleeding edge of journalism and instead study its dying embers. You become what you focus on.
Great point, Cathy — thanks for the comment.
The consumption format needs to change significantly. AMAs on Reddit – that is a good pointer. Journalism will soon change completely.