SB Nation pulls Daniel Holtzclaw longform piece

If you're a terrible manager, sure.

 

It is awfully amusing the anti-longform piece clocked in at 3,200 words.

 

http://gawker.com/how-long-should-a...m_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

 

"Even in this age of fetishized sprawling longform, a 10,000-word piece is likelier to have been diligently edited than a 5,000-word one. Five thousand words is the piece you didn’t like or care about enough to cut down to 3,800."

Whatever, Scocca, ya insufferable twit. In a piece criticizing the idea of hitting word benchmarks, he's making a blanket statement about what you can expect at certain benchmarks.

 

It is a pretty funny graphic though.

 

From the comments section....

"If you want your audience to print out your epic article and read it piece while sitting on a toilet, a bar stool, or in bed during a sleepless night then 4,000-7,000 words is fine. Anything more and the author is basically saying, “Shut up, I’m trying to win fucking awards!”

 

I've been thinking about this a bunch tonight. It all seems very off to me. About the lightest thing I can say is, the distribution of blame seems unevenly weighted.

As for this length nonsense, Jesus Christ. Some 400-w0rd stories suck, some are fine, and some are great. Some 4,000-word stories suck, some are fine, and some are great. Some 12,000-word stories suck, some are fine, and some are great. Same with 90-minute movies and 3-hour movies. Same with two-minute punk-rock songs and nine-minute anthems. Length is too often confused with substance, and many stories could be shorter. But I still think of John Sack's "M" in my sleep, and it was 33,000 words.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but part of this breakdown at SBNation looks, sounds and smells like there was some gender and racial discrimination at play here.

Bergeron is a black female while Floyd and Stout are white males. In Bergeron's last-ditch attempt to have the story killed, Floyd and Stout refused to listen to her during a conference call, got in a heated argument and hung up on her. It is plausible they believed themselves less emotionally attached to the story's subject matter and her to be over-reacting, so they ignored her objections and published the story.

 

Agreed. I just watched the recent episode of the new OJ series, and a scene showed a vaguely similar disconnect. Shapiro to Cochran: "You know how these people think ..."

 

From the Deadspin article, the most articulate statement I've seen about longform for longform's sake.

 

Length isn't the problem. Writerly length can be. The New Yorker runs long form pieces every week. They simply call them articles. No self-aggrandizement necessary.