> [further down on Romenesko's letters - I hate to sound like an old
> fart, but are we going to end up nostalgic for the days when TV
> offered real substance?]
>
> <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.
Patrick wrote:
> Sounds like standard radio news stories. Even Pacifica rarely
> opened up more than 3 min/story when I reported for them 15 years
> ago. I remember being in a Capitol Hill studio during the Jim
> Wright paranha feed with the wire reporters and one (from AP, I
> think) loudly advertised his little thrill: "I got space for two
> actualities!" (soundbites) Everyone looked at him in awe.
On the other hand, American movies today are longer than they used to be (and many of them feel longer than they should be, even though each shot is probably shorter on average than one used to be).
"During the late 1940s, the average length of a film increased from what was prevalent in the 1930s and early 1940s. By the 1950s, the average length increased from 75–80 to 90–100 minutes per film, with many exceeding 120 minutes" ("Editorial Policy," AFI Catalog, <http:// afi.chadwyck.com/about/editorial.htm>).
I wonder why. Don't shorter films make more economic sense (more showings, more tickets and snacks sold)?
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org> * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- ahmadinejads-face.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>