In this age of short attention spans and multitasking,Michael Kinsley certainly thinks so
Writing in the Atlantic he says that
one reason seekers of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory.
2 comments:
I don't think the author makes a lucid analisys of the reality. I don't believe that size makes much of a diference (there's numerous cases of blogs and websites, including the Atlantic wich) in this issue.
There have allways been people with short attention spans, we all had coleagues in school who couldn't or wouldn't read a line. And there will allays be people, such as me, who love to read. Be it small or long. If it's good, I read it. Online or offline. And I don't agree that journalists in newspapers are writing that much different or longer than people who write in the web.
And the conventions he talks about are not absurd, they have a reason to exist and they are not necessarily bad. Or, in other words, "Getting to the point" is not necessarily the best journalistic and writing practice. Not if you read, let's say, a good piece of investigative journalism or a more profound interview.
Cheers!
Sorry: (there's numerous cases of blogs and websites, including the Atlantic, with long articles and lot's of readers)
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