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The Politicker momentarily becomes The Mediator with some good media scoop: Tom Scocca reports that NY Times executive editor Bill Keller sent a memo saying stories had to get leaner and meaner - and any stories over 1800 words need to be approved by certain editors first. From the Politicker:
Mr. Keller described the move in an internal memo as part of a campaign against endemic "bloat" or "flab"--stories that "sometimes feel slack or padded." Though he conceded in the note that budget concerns played some role, he wrote that "this is not primarily about saving space."Gothamist knows what this means: (1) Some research was done and the NY Times print readership is getting older and the cataracts are getting bad; (2) Online readers don't like it when the stories jump to a second page - they are impatient; and (3) Without the extra graf, telling anecdotes will be subliminally placed in advertisements. We did find this memo interesting, because it's the Times, not the Post or Daily News, and we look to the Times for its insane level of detail. Gothamist can only guess that the current soundbite-driven, highly edited, just-the-facts-ma'am era, both on TV and online, is causing this move. Next thing you know, we'll be hearing about the most portable (you know, without the extra three sections sliding out) print edition. Oh, and be sure to read the post at The Politicker: There's an auto-summary of a recent 3000+ word Times article.Mr. Keller wrote: "I'm talking, for the most part, about 1,200-word stories that could be told--better told--in 900 words....I'm talking about features that meander through an unnecessary and uncompelling anecdotal lede and get to the point in the fourth or fifth graph."
The 1,100-word memo is a little saggy around the middle itself -- "Complexity, nuance, competing viewpoints, important context, analytical connections, killer quotes, telling anecdotes...these are things that set us apart from TV, and from most other print publications."
Do you like the long NY Times stories? Or do you like your stories in Headline News ticker style?
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Hey, I think you need to close an italics tag in the Hit & Run story. Anyway, I also like those anecdotal ledes and the NYT's level of detail. What's going on over there these days? It's bad enough that they killed "Circuits". I can think of some things with the paper that could be improved, but I'm happy with the length of the stories.
Personally, I like the longer stories. Too many news outlets (paper and online) reduce everything to little soundbites. The NY Times is known for it's in-depth reporting. If I wanted brief news items, I'd read CNN.com or one of those free newspapers like Metro.
I think the length should suit the story, period. Jumping up a bad story with a bunch of anecdotal fluffery is to be frowned on, but stripping an important news story of color and detail is also a bad idea.
As a matter of personal preference I could do without the long, wistful parachuting-in stories that many of the Times national correspondents do. I think those stories are overly emotive junk and teeth-gnashing cultural tourism about 85% of the time. But I know other people like that kinda stuff and I can just as easily skip it.
All that said, I can understand the Times wanting to sacrifice paunch if it means more punch. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.
By the way, it was long past time for the editors to pull the plug on Circuits. I suspect that given the general tech ad-spending malaise the section was a massive drain on newsroom finances. Besides, there's a whole new asset bubble -- in housing -- that can support yet another bloated, ad-chocked section -- Homes.
I like the stories to be long and hard. The NYT should never do it nice and easy. Unless, of course, it's Sunday's Styles section. I like that nice and easy.
Why bother having newspapers at all then? The main reason to prefer newspapers over TV news is that newspapers go more in-depth than the soundbites we see on TV. I personally like that Times stories tend to be more thorough.
I love all those interesting facts that you can only find in a NYTs story. Where else do you find out that Victorian-era women took arsenic to achieve pallor --the ultra fair complexion that was the height of beauty-- and that they increased their dose little by little until they were taking doses that would kill an average person but their systems had built up resistance to the poison. Priceless!
Note they want to get rid of the anecdotes which is all soundbites are. This, if anything, separates the paper from TV news sources. Also they cite budgetary reasons too. While not certain, I believe the Times pays about $1 a word for their features. That adds up fast with an extra 200-400 words of fluff
If slicing an anecdote down in a feature means that the Times has more room to run important international or economic stories they have glossed in the past, or that they can add a page to their woefully inadequate Metro section, I'm all for it.
I like the detail and anecdotes that pepper some stories. Like the arsenic fact above, it's a chance to share knowledge you pick up while doing research and helps draw people from something small to something bigger. That's good with stories where you need to paint a bit of a picture for the reader's context. Obviously, you go too over the top with frippery or the focus of the story gets lost.
The New Yorker is terribly guilty in this respect. Sometimes it's not until you've read five full pages that you realize that was the intro and the real story is just getting going for eight more pages. (I'm thinking in particular of the personal history story from last week, where the author goes on at length about his mom, his parents' divorce, his mom's problems--THEN it turns into a piece about her peace crusading and the Pope. Or something. Could easily have been two separate pieces if the storytelling were better organized. Instead it was one bloated peice that I gave up on. If I want WASP-y meanderings, I read Roger Angell's stuff.)
Jen W, it obviously wasn't your intent to draw a direct comparison between the Times and The New Yorker, publications which serve two very different masters, but the juxtaposition is a useful one in making the broader point:
The New Yorker is built for long-form, detail-laden feature writing; it is the magazine's raison d'etre. I don't mind the meandering in those pages, because if the story is up to their usual standards, the digressions ultimately cohere with the arc of the piece.
But I think for the most part the primary business of The New York Times is delivering to readers the latest news about the world, and that requires a very different kind of writing. Now, does delivering the news mean that anecdotes and telling details have to be thrown to the wind? No, of course not. Such details always make stories better. I just think the spatial (and indeed, temporal) demands of newspaper writing mean they have to be marshaled in a more economical fashion. Ultimately, it seems, that is exactly what the Times is trying to do.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Apparently Rose doesn't like it long and hard after all.
A magazine is for long pieces that detail every nuance. A newspaper is for news. A big thing they teach you in J-school is to keep your writing tight and cut down on words to get the story out. But by the time you get to the Times, you're ego may be a little too big for your own good. I don't read any story Jennifer 8. Lee writes, I read any story that gives me the news. It's not the reporter that's important, it's the content.
What? Huh? Did I just dream I read pretentious crap?
Rose, please try harder.
Avid reader of Sunday Styles complaining about pretentiousness = OMGWTFLOL
"Online readers don't like it when the stories jump to a second page - they are impatient"
One thing I've always wondered why the Times website never did. For those of us on broadband, and that's more and more every day, why don't they give us secondary links next to every headline to the single-page formatted stories? Why make us go to the first page then select single-page format, which increases their bandwidth needs and our inconvenience? Better yet, they should let you select it as a account preference since they're already tracking us through cookies. That would mean no additional links -- if you've selected that option, clicking on the headline would take you straight to the single-page article.
Does the jump-page thing allow NYTimes.com to pad their page view numbers for advertisers?