Comment by forrestthewoods
10 months ago
> the first sentence should have the who, what, when, where
I utterly despise modern long form journalism which does not establish any of these things until 1/3 through the article. It’s infuriating.
10 months ago
> the first sentence should have the who, what, when, where
I utterly despise modern long form journalism which does not establish any of these things until 1/3 through the article. It’s infuriating.
It's not just long form journalism. The basic five-paragraph essay, taught in every school from elementary through university level, violates this principle. When you're learning to write, there is an implicit assumption that you have a captive audience — even if it's limited to your teacher — who is forced to read your work. So there is generally insufficient emphasis on "getting to the point." Instead, you're taught to "grab the reader's attention," with an exciting sentence or visual anecdote. That's what you're seeing in long form journalism that usually starts with some narrative description of a central character in the story.
Whereas in the real world, you are competing for attention, and nobody has to read what you write. So if your goal is to convey information, you better get to the point. But if your goal is to tell a story, then what's the rush?
> Whereas in the real world, you are competing for attention, and nobody has to read what you write
Note that this is a cultural artifact relative to our time where marketing and lobbying are so pervasive. Aristotle isn’t written to grab your attention.
The articles were intended for you to read. If you find them annoying, maybe they weren't written for you.
> The articles were intended for you to read
Or they were intended for you to scroll further on the page and load more ads and autoplay videos.
Good essays start with their thesis, expand upon that, and conclude by bringing it back to it.
There is no reason journalism should veer away from a format that works for one goal (information dissemination), unless there are other goals at play (longer engagement).
Perhaps novels should be written in the inverted triangle format.
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There are more long form articles available than I have time to read. I hate when a juicy sounding headline grabs my attention, but I have to read for 5 minutes just to figure out what it’s actually about and if I want to keep reading. The disappointment of going from “interesting title” to “vague unimportant flashback” is immense.
I feel like most news articles I read miss the why, just like your first sentence.
But aren't you happy when you finally learn that John was wearing Khaki pants and sipping a Latte that he just ordered at a starbucks? /s