More and more, it’s becoming apparent that digital publishing is its own thing, not an additional platform for established news companies. They can buy their way into it, but their historical advantages are often offset by legacy costs and bureaucracy.
In digital media, technology is not a wingman, it is The Man. Kenneth Lerer, manager of Lerer Ventures and one of the backers of BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post, says that whenever he is pitched an editorial idea, he always asks who the technology partner is. How something is made and published is often as important as what is made.
.. “Digital journalism is as different from print and TV journalism as print and TV are from each other,” Mr. Blodget said by telephone from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Few people expect great print news organizations to also win in TV. Similarly, few should expect great TV or print organizations to win in digital. The news-gathering, storytelling and distribution approaches are just very different.”
Clive Thompson: “Reading poetry shakes up my brain”
In cinema, for example, there’s a “two-shot”, a moment when the camera is filming two people who are talking, neither of whom is acknowledging the presence of the camera. And there’s a one-shot, where someone is talking directly into the camera — and thus talking directly to the audience. Each of these shots has a different dramatic feel, a different energy.
Long-form magazine writing employs very similar techniques. There are moments when you’re describing two people talking to each other, in a classic two-shot manner. There are moments when you’re relaying quotes and comments that an interviewee said directly to you, and only to you: That’s a one-shot. And as in cinema, these each have a very different energy and drama on the page. And if you think about all the other types of shots in cinema, many have analogues in magazine writing too, like close-ups or panning shots.
When ‘Long-Form’ Is Bad Form
When we fetishize “long-form,” we are fetishizing the form and losing sight of its function.
.. The trouble starts when the subject becomes secondary, and the writer becomes not just observer but participant, the hero of his story.
.. What, then, is the function — the purpose — of “long-form”? To allow a writer to delve into the true complexities of a story, and also to bring readers closer to the experience of other people. Whether a long-form story is published in a magazine or on the web, its goal should be to understand and illuminate its subject, and maybe even use that subject to (subtly) explore some larger, more universal truths. Above all, that requires empathy, the real hallmark of great immersive journalism.
The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate You
The question predates Berger’s interest in it by centuries. In 350 B.C., Aristotle was already wondering what could make content—in his case, a speech—persuasive and memorable, so that its ideas would pass from person to person. The answer, he argued, was three principles: ethos, pathos, and logos. Content should have an ethical appeal, an emotional appeal, or a logical appeal. A rhetorician strong on all three was likely to leave behind a persuaded audience. Replace rhetorician with online content creator, and Aristotle’s insights seem entirely modern. Ethics, emotion, logic—it’s credible and worthy, it appeals to me, it makes sense.