Go Long, Young Man

Not long ago, I was at a party with media and political types. While slugging my white wine, I ended up in conversation with a former editor of a high-flying, 2010s digital publication that still exists but no longer punches above its weight class. The editor, who’s moved on to other ventures, and I spoke briefly about writing, and what might work in today’s age. I spoke about Substack, and my love for in-depth, discursive pieces, as well as my nostalgia for the days when prestige magazines like Esquire could print many thousands of words from a single writer, or the New Yorker might turn over a whole issue to a single piece, as they did for John Hersey’s reportage from Hiroshima. The editor was not especially moved. He felt much of what he saw on Substack was too long. When I mentioned the New Journalism greats of yore, and their penchant for heavyweight dispatches, he was unmoved. “Whatever they turned in was longer, and the editor made it shorter.”