Business Insider invests in long-form journalism

Joe Pompeo of Capital New York reports Monday that Business Insider plans to invest in more long-form stories.

Pompeo writes, “Business Insider plans to invest ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ revving up its long-form content, founder and editor-in-chief Henry Blodget told Capital.

“A chunk of that money will go toward hiring an editor whose job will be ‘to decide the best frequency, length, and approach of these stories, as well as the time and resources invested in each one,’ said Blodget over email. The rest will be poured into a freelance budget, as Business Insider will be commissioning outside writers and reporters in addition to assigning long-form stories to staff.

“‘There’s a hunger for these kinds of stories,’ said Blodget. ‘But we’ve just now reached the scale where we can dedicate significant resources to this.’

“Business Insider is spreading its wings as other digital interlopers have also been stealing some of traditional media’s thunder when it comes to producing long, thoughtful, narrative journalism. The Huffington Post won a Pulitzer for one such series, about wounded Afghanistan war veterans, last year. Multi-thousand-word features have become a regular part of Gawker Media’s mix. And Buzzfeed raised eyebrows this same time last year when it began scouting for a position similar to the one Business Insider is now looking to fill: ‘longform editor.'”

Read more here.