<http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10504>
The value of "short-form journalism" 10/17/2005 11:12:33 AM
From DAN SHANOFF: Subject -- Response to Frank Ahren's WaPo column about Internet writing. As someone who writes a "mainstream" column based around short, chatty, opinion-based news delivery for an online audience, I would say that teaching "short-form journalism" -- as you'd find on a blog, cell-phone screen, iPod or other portable device -- is as vital to the future of the industry as training young journalists how to research and write long, investigative pieces.
Anyone can write a 1,000-word story, but I'm not sure where the relevancy of that is headed in a world where consumers won't give you 100 words, let alone 10 times that much. Learning how to digest a complex story into 50-75 words combining news, analysis and voice doesn't diminish the news; it is simply critical to meeting the readers in the way they are going to consume the news.