Capital New York interviewed Gillian Tett, the U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times.
Here is an excerpt:
CAPITAL: Quartz editor in chief Kevin Delaney has argued that the average 800-word newspaper article is too long for people reading their news online or on mobile. Do you agree? Do F.T. editors follow any guidelines about story length?
TETT: At the F.T., Lionel Barber, our editor, often talks about “fast” and “slow” news, or news that you “lean into” (to quickly read) and news that you “lean out” from (to read slowly and thoughtfully.) Both have a very valid place in the new era of journalism. We have launched a very successful new offering called fastFT online which provides readers with quick, bite size morsels of news that can digested on a mobile device very easily; but we also offer very long thoughtful analysis, too, with our so-called “Big Reads”, and magazine pieces. The former is sometimes just 150-200 words; the latter 2000 (for Big Reads) or 4000 (magazine pieces).
Both formats are popular, but readers consume them in different ways. That is no surprise: when we eat food, we sometimes want a sandwich, but sometimes look for a smart restaurant instead. The pieces that fall in between these extremes, which are 800 words long or so, are often popular too; but as time passes we may move to a model which puts more emphasis on long and short journalism. But we haven’t made a binding decision yet; the only thing we do know is that we will only run longer pieces (more than 500 words or so) if they really add value and an original piece of F.T. insight.
Read more here.
