At WordStock, a festival for writing in Portland last weekend, Joel Lovell, senior editor at GQ and a professor in the creative nonfiction program at the University of Pittsburgh, and Randy Gragg, editor in chief at Portland Monthly discussed the future of long form journalism.
What’s “long form journalism”?
As an example, Lovell used John Hersey’s 31,000-word “Hiroshima” article, which appeared in the August 31, 1946 issue of The New Yorker. The story dealt with the atomic bomb dropped on that Japanese city and its effects on the six Japanese citizens. The article took up the entire issue of the magazine – something The New Yorker had never done before, nor has it since.
Today, Amazon dropped a bombshell of its own, for the magazine industry. Amazon introduced Kindle Singles. It’s for writers who have content that is “twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book.”
The Kindle Singles section isn’t open yet; the company is still gathering content. Amazon is putting out a call to “serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians, and publishers” to submit their work for consideration.
Another example for photojournalists is Seven Magazine, which officially launched this month. It uses SoundSlides to create a launch pad for professional photojournalism.
Ignition sequence start.
Apple sold 3.27 million iPads as of June 30 and has created a promising new outlet for many news organizations, reports the WS Journal. You can sell ads and subscriptions.
Newspapers are lining up behind Samsung’s 7″ Galaxy Tab, reports the Journal, to broaden their mobile readership beyond the iPad. Samsung has announced deals with Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and AT&T to distribute it in the U.S.
Samsung plans to sell 10 million Galaxy Tab devices by the third quarter of 2011.
The international version of the Galaxy will launch with an e-reading hub featuring three built-in apps that already aggregate content for mobile devices: Zinio for magazines, Kobo for e-books and PressDisplay for newspapers.
Current newspaper apps include:
- The NY Times’s app for the Galaxy will be free for a time, as will its full app for the iPad launching later this year. In January 2011, the Times will begin charging for unlimited access to its website.
- The Wall Street Journal app is expected to offer its Android app on a subscription basis, according to a person familiar with the matter.
- USA Today, which has had over 1 million downloads of their iPad app.
- The Financial Times, with over 400,000 downloads, is in talks with other tablet makers
Few local papers are pursuing iPad apps, reports Poynter. Their review of midsized metro (and smaller) papers finds 13 with iPad apps.
Apps developed by Good.iWare Ltd.
Universal apps (work on both iPhone/iPad)
- AZ Central.com (The Arizona Republic)
- Leesburg (Va.) Today
- Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
iPad-only
Most newspaper companies in the United States, including the largest newspaper chains, have yet to get on board.
Condé Nast iPad apps have been downloaded 3.8 million times for its GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and Glamour magazines. The company found that users weren’t the early-adopters or Apple fanboys the publisher expected.
It’s a risky venture for publishers – even if the future looks bright. Traditional newspapers and magazines may be the biggest losers. Writers and photographers may be the biggest winners.
On the other hand, Demand Media, which employs an algorithm that identifies topics with high advertising potential, may crowd out great work with on-line drek. Publishers with premium content might succeed on a scale larger than previously imagined.
Then there’s Jonathan Franzen, who seems to make the hand wringing, irrelevant.
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