The Burdens of Accountability
You can put long articles on the internet. But Josh Tyrangiel, Managing Editor of Time.com says it doesn’t really work and he has a sensible explanation of why. If you look at the traffic statistics for any newsish website you’ll see that people are reading when they’re supposed to be at work. Which means they’re multitasking. Which means they want short items.
This reminds me that something I’ve come to understand in my years in the business is that probably the greatest privilege that writers for traditional magazines have is that nobody has any idea who’s reading them. Instead, they get to sort of operate with this mental image of things working very differently from the guy reading blogs instead of filling out his TPS Report. Maybe you’re relaxing in your easy chair, smoking a pipe, lovingly devouring each and every sentence of that 6,000 feature. Nice to think of your writing getting that kind of loving care from readers.
But if you think about how magazines actually work, it’s really not like that. I subscribe to The New Yorker because it’s a great magazine. But do I read every article that’s in every issue of the New Yorker? Of course not. In fact, some weeks I barely read any articles at all. And as best I can tell, the same is true of most New Yorker subscribers. And certainly almost nobody reads more than a trivial percentage of the content The New York Times puts out on any given day. But in print, nobody can really tell what’s being read or when or why or by whom. You just know that the gestalt is selling. Which gives editors and writers a lot of flexibility in terms of what they put into the gestalt. Which is fun because in my experience people get into writing and editing periodicals primarily because they enjoy doing it rather than because they’re genuinely interested in being responsible fiduciary agents of profit-maximizing shareholders.
On the web, there’s much less wiggle room and much less room for self-deception. You need readers who really and truly do click over to your site each and every day, not “subscribers” who may or may not be reading any given issue. And you know the—unflattering—truth about when they read you. Generally at work, and with intermittent attention.
34 Responses to “The Burdens of Accountability”
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August 25th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
If everyone completely ignores this post, will it go away? I’m much too busy to care.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
The up side of blogging: you can be reasonably confident people aren’t reading you on the john.
But I actually only read this blog for the cartoons.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
You can tell how many times people click on a particular web page but not how long they stay there or how much of it they actually read.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
The up side of blogging: you can be reasonably confident people aren’t reading you on the john.
Oh, I’ve read this blog on the john.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Regarding #2 (Ted), don’t bet on it – people could be reading the blog on their smartphone while sitting on the toilet.
Just sayin’. Not that I’d know anything about that.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Its a lot more difficult to wipe your bottom with a laptop than a magazine.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
This post is 3 paragraphs too long.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Jesus. These whippersnappers and their little portable devices.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Long, in-depth articles may get less clicks, but may also have greater potential to be the kind of thing that readers actually pay for.
If I get the first page of a 10-page article for free and think it’s really interesting, maybe I’d be willing to pay a small fee (10 cents? 50 cents?)to read the rest if it’s easy to do so.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I wonder what this does to the power dynamic. After all, for a long time, the people who built the gestalt got to call the shots by hiring the writers. But all those years in the New Yorker, were people really reading David Denby or John McPhee? If it was one rather than the other, and people knew that… I guess it might have made sense for the more popular guy to start his own magazine. Or blog. Or whatever. So readers are better off. McPhee is better off. Only the editors and Denby suffer.
Or is that really how things work? Numerous times, MY has discussed the importance of litarary signalling. You carry Gravity’s Rainbow on the subway, maybe. But you don’t actually have to read it. Same with the New Yorker on the coffee table. Someone, somewhere, reads the whole thing and declares it great. Maybe the Paris Review says it’s great. But who cares. SOMEONE smart said it was great. So I get to be smart by putting it on the coffee table.
Have we arrived at a situation which actually requires me to read the stuff I say I read? And after reading it, I am left with no way to make sure other people know I read it?
That sucks. Next thing you know, someone is going to start calling out my Ivy League education as a sham, and questioning why I support one sports team over another. Bah!
August 25th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
>_>
August 25th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Oh I dunno about that Ted, pretty much the only reason I started reading Salon back in the day was because King Kaufman’s articles were the perfect length (2 printed pages) for an…ahem…unscheduled work stoppage
August 25th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
“ou need readers who really and truly do click over to your site each and every day, not “subscribers” who may or may not be reading any given issue.”
I guess, but on this blog, when I see a bunch of wonky health care posts, I just click “Mark all as read” in Google Reader.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
It would assuredly redound to Time.com’s benefit if they removed those horrible end-of-paragraph red hyperlinks to “related stories.”
August 25th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Peter,
You can see how long people are on your page.
RSS Feeds have the same sort of problems as magazine subscriptions though.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
There are times when I have hours to kill (e.g. waiting for an airplane) and read a good chunk of the New York Times. Sometimes I get all the way through Section A. Okay, it doesn’t happen very often, but it’s very unlikely that I ever would do that on the Internet
August 25th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Obligatory Onion Link:
August 25th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
The above-linked Onion piece hits the nail precisely on the head.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
The New Yorker is a great magazine because of its long pieces, and David Remnick knows it, which is why it continues to a great magazine well worth the price of subscription. The type of in-depth pieces that often appear (not every week, but often enough to warrant subscription) are invaluable and not to be found on the web. I read mine on the subway to and from work everyday, which a lot of other people do as well given the number of magazines I see out everyday. Drivers don’t have that luxury, so I suspect they try to devour entire issues on the weekend or maybe (like I do as well) when putting in cardio work at the gym. Place the magazine over the display console, and you lose track of time, making the exercise go by faster. Print still has a valuable place.
That said, I almost never buy a print newspaper. I continue to read the Times, in part, because its web features are so strong. So I think print magazines of a kind and in certain places will outlast newspapers. Not necessarily good news for the human condition.
August 25th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
As much as his business models entail treating writers like shit, Nick Denton also understands this.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Not so fast, my friend.
Per the update in the link, New York Times Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati said the following yesterday:
“And, contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s our longest pieces that attract the most online traffic.”
August 25th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
i think matt gets the internet part of the equation pretty well right, but the magazine/nyt side wrong. most of us are reading on the net at work, or waiting for an appointment, or because supper’s over and the kids have to be put to bed soon and that’s not enough time to read a long article or a book, or because teh game starts soon, not because we are reading to have things explained at length or to be exposed to subjects that we might not otherwise read about.
magazines aim for the more leisured, inquiring, somewhat serendipitious experience. i read almost every article in every issue of the new yorker, and in every issue of the new york review, and in two or three other magazines. each issue, i glance at the table of contents and think, not so much in hear this time. then, when i sit down to read it, i give the articles a chance, and, because, unlike (many) internet articles, the magazine articles build. they don’t start out with the conclusion and repeat it over and over from there, with personal attacks and snark (all of which have their uses). instead, they construct and try to capture a world; in so doing, they let one think about both the construction and the capture and why the article works, even if its cosntruction and capture don’t. the web tends to be all or nothing and thus tends to encourage short bursts—you told me; you’re a genius or an idiot; now i shall comment to show i am a genius or an idiot. the web certainly can be more, but we haven’t built that culture yet. and we may never, if we think it is the brand or the style of one writer, rather than the collection of a number of well-written pieces that drives the successful magazine.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I think the mistake that is to be found in pretty much all commentary on the new reading paradigm is the assumption that there is only one way in which content in consumed, and that content must thus be molded to fit that niche.
I flip through Google Reader for five minutes every hour or two at work, and during that time I’m the kind of reader you describe in this post. Longer posts that seem interesting (and posts with audio content) I save until I get home, where I read through them and often do a bit of my own research. On the weekends I read anything interesting in the Times’ Sunday magazine, and I read their longer articles and opinion pieces at lunch break. I also spend lots of weekend days sitting around with paper books, and listen to podcasts an hour a day while I’m jogging.
The specific manner in which I consume content is probably somewhat unique because it’s a result of how I structure my day and what content I’m interested in. But the basic idea – different modes of content consumption at different times and for different purposes – is not at all unusual in my experience.
Put shortly, don’t worry too much about whether your posts are 6,000 words long or 60. Just focus on producing interesting content, and it’ll get read.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Like the typical read Matt describes, I read the internet mostly at work and rarely, when I am particularly bored, at home on the weekends. I think that says more about the delivery system than the content. The idea of sitting in front of a computer – even a laptop in the living room – scrolling through an article on the web is depressing. It (1) reminds me too much of being at work, and (2) makes me feel like a loser for having nothing better to do. Flipping through the New Yorker in the living room, or at the dining room table, doesn’t have those same associations. But if you think about it, the difference between the two formats is really trivial. I think it argues for the possibility that reading on-line during leisure time could become more palatable over time and with improvements in portability. So Tyrangiel may be right at the moment but not in the near future.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias notes that bloggers and others who write for the Web lack a luxury of those who write for print: “nobody has any idea who’s reading them.” Whereas there are detailed metrics about pageviews on the Web, all print has to go on is circulation figures. So they can blithely assume that their long features and hard news and the like are being widely read, whether it’s true or not. [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
In my personal code, I only steal flowers that are growing too close to the sidewalk and magazines from doctor’s offices and hospital lobbies. As a caregiver I have clocked a lot of hours reading a wide variety of magazine articles while waiting. OHSU has an excellent selection.
I subscribed to Harper’s magazine for many years and would read everything in it, until it started going down hill. Now that he’s not editor of Harpers, If Lewis Lapham would learn to blog, I’d read it. I think he could pull off some long-ish blogs—not as long as his essays, though.
When I want to read in-depth about a particular topic, I read long articles from as many sources as I can find, so I really appreciate it when bloggers link to long articles, especially the now rare investigative journalism.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
but in print, nobody can really tell what’s being read or when or why or by whom.
Nonsense! Most of the research is done through computer-assisted-telephone-interviews (CATI), but there’s also copy-texts (going through yesterdays paper with participants) and even eye-tracking. Carlo Imboden developed reader scan analysis, where a panel of readers is given a pen/scanner to mark exactly what they read, down to the line where they stop and skip to the next article.
Granted, unlike television, AFAIK no newspaper get’s daily in-detail information on audience share but all major newspapers get periodical CATI information. And, due to the importance of this information for advertisers, they all know exactly, who reads their paper (when or why are less of a concern).
Considering that newspaper reading is often habitual and constrained by monopoly (changing but still valid) that’s good enough and certainly no worse than trying to devine said info from page-impressions and unique visits.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
[...] Yglesias, I go through the New Yorker cover to cover as soon as it arrives. But that’s just for the [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I guess my question would be what counts as short and long on the web? I know that the average newspaper op-ed is about 700-800 words, so what’s the average number of words for a short blog post versus a long post?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Yes, but you can sometimes have a big impact with an in-depth piece that informs and enlightens much better than a short one would, that is read by a lot less people, but is read by opinion leaders, experts, and people in power.
Often cascades down to the general public and to policy start with in-depth writings, even — gasp — whole books, that convince opinion leaders and experts first. Free trade (or predominantly free trade) is an example. A lot of long in-depth work first convinced almost all economists, and this strong consensus cascaded down to well informed individuals and many politicians.
Will longer in-depth pieces be read on blogs and online journals by opinion leaders, experts, and politicians? I’ve seen a lot of these pieces discussed by such people.
August 26th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I only subscribe to Harper’s, which I read cover to cover and in order. Sometimes I do read “Findings” before finishing the cryptic, and some other times I don’t even finish the cryptic at all, though I’m on a pretty good streak lately.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I read long articles on the internet all the time. If they’re more than a couple of pages, though, I’ll print it off. I’d still prefer they existed on the internet, than only in print (or not at all, for some content).
August 27th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Pathetic. Even our supposedly knowledgeable commentators like Yglesias here don’t have the attention span to go cover to cover on the New Yorker. Do you read books, sir? how do you ever make it through them?
August 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
[...] up on a post by Matt Yglesias, Coates says: I’d agree that knowing exactly who is reading you is a revealing experience. [...]