Keywords: “Longform,” “Print,” “Journalism,” “Thayer” “Pay”, “Whither?”

[UPDATE: In my next post, I respond to some of the excellent comments below.]

The writer Michael Washburn put together a good panel the other night, at CUNY Graduate Center, on the future — or not — of what’s now called longform journalism. The idea being that in the age of the tweet, we have to call it something (we used to just call it journalism).

“People don’t read on the Web, they scan” — that dictum prevailed in the Web’s early days, with the corollary notion that the rise of digital, interactive technology might signal doom for longish, fully developed, fully reported and researched pieces like those famously published by “The New Yorker,” “The Atlantic,” “Rolling Stone,” “Esquire,” etc., in fast-fading good times for writers, editors, and readers. Now, however, we know that people do read “on the Web,” or read on whatever we want to call anything involving a screen digitally displaying written content. Indeed, people ramble on at interminable length online (on blogs like this!), with no evident sense of structure. Sometimes other people even read those ramblings. And comment at length.

The CUNY panelists — writers David Samuels of “Harper’s” and David Grann of “The New Yorker,” digital publishers Evan Ratliff of “The Atavist” and Alana Newhouse of “Tablet,” moderated by Max Linksy of the organization Longform — seemed to be suggesting that sheer length isn’t really the thing endangered by digital. Which seems right. As a copywriter in online marketing (my day job, back in what were the good old days to a David Samuels, when I couldn’t get arrested as a writer), I figured out a long time ago that the scanning-vs-reading thing doesn’t really map to the digital-vs-print thing. People always scanned brochures in print, and they now read long essays online, and vice versa. Varying content gets varying engagement. [UPDATE: A commenter below takes issue with the use of "scan" here, since the word originally meant "read closely." It's developed to mean something like "glance and quickly gather," or, as the commenter suggests, "skim," which is how "scan" is used in assessing online marketing copy; such text is supposed to have have "scannability," achieved via headlines, subheads, bullet points, etc.]

(Deploying text for good interactive usabilty is a separate issue. In the early Web days, I think we sometimes confused it with this one.)

The CUNY panelists gravitated naturally toward considering whether quality is endangered, and if so, whether that’s because the financial models for delivering quality journalism to readers are — not endangered — demolished! — by the rise of new technologies. On the one hand, the good long stuff, in the oldest, best modes, does exist online — often but by no means always on the websites of the old-school magazines — and it’s even lionized (given the name “longform,” for example), fostered and promoted by efforts like Longform and Longreads. As print magazines collapse financially in the face of digital, there are ways in which digital is actually preserving the longer form.

The overall tone of the panel seemed to suggest that the ultimate questions may therefore be business ones.

Washington’s Birthday and Public Debt

Washington’s real birthday was just last Friday, and perhaps in preparation for it, on Wednesday the anti-tax, anti-government-debt activist Grover Norquist posted this: “Today, in 1792, George Washington signed the law creating the US Postal Service. Oh, well. No one is perfect.”

The purport of Norquist’s tweet — even great Washington nodded — is actually kind of funny. Yet it relies, not surprisingly, on a false presumption: that the first president’s other efforts and decisions were dedicated to bringing about the kind of American government that Norquist and fellow anti-tax, anti-debt types do want: little-to-zero debt and very low taxes, as government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

In fact the Norquist crowd would get little support from the real George Washington. The first president did not, putting it mildly, hope to diminish the size and scope of central government. He loved federal taxes. And he was a big fan of national debt.

The Strange Case of “The Surrender of Washington Hansen”

[or: "I Wouldn't Give a Hoot in Hell for My Journey Now" (Cash)]

[UPDATE: Part Two of this thing is here.]

In a break from my usual topics, this is the strange history of the one novel I’ve written, The Surrender of Washington Hansen. At some point soon I intend to find an interesting way to publish it. Probably for reading on a digital device and/or using the Espresso process for print on demand. Given that I publish books with actual publishers, given the time that’s elapsed since I wrote the novel, and given the novel’s progress through a Hollywood film-rights process, without yet seeing screen or page, this post might be seen as one of those things that get hyped on book reissues this way: “with a new introduction by the author!” — But in this case it’s for a book that few people have read.

But I think the book’s progress, or lack of same, makes a bleakly interesting saga of the ups and down of the writing game. Also, the novel’s themes (or whatever), which developed well before I ever thought I’d write or publish any real American history, or write or publish any nonfiction at all, connect with and reflect on my current history themes (or whatever) in ways I never could have perceived when I started writing history, but are pretty glaring to me now.

If I self-publish the novel, some readers of The Whiskey Rebellion, Declaration, and Founding Finance may agree. Or not.

I’ll Be on the C-SPAN of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvanians: I’ll be on “PA Books,” PCN TV’s author-interview show, on Feb. 24, 2013. Taped it last month, one hour, unedited — Brian Lockman, head of PCN (the C-SPAN of Pennsylvania!) has long been a great supporter and interviewer, and I seem to recall the discussion going pretty well. If I can, I’ll get it on YouTube so people outside PA can see it.

Me and the Federal Reserve Board

Upcoming event (way upcoming): On April 17, 2013, I’ll be speaking in Kansas City on founding American conflicts over debts public and private, foreclosures, etc. Co-sponsored by the KC Fed and the KC Public Library. Should be lively … Details to come.

The Founding Fathers and National Debt

My piece, cross-posted from Bloomberg “Echoes”:

Although Republicans in Congress agreed this week to suspend the U.S. debt limit for three months and forestalled another budgetary showdown, most commentators think the peace won’t last. There’s sure to be a fight over automatic spending cuts scheduled to kick in March 1 (part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal), followed by a looming deadline for funding the government that could lead to a shutdown. And House Speaker John Boehner has vowed to block any long-term increase in the debt ceiling without corresponding spending cuts — in effect, holding out the possibility of default as a means of controlling the country’s debt. As Republicans engage in this brinkmanship, they claim to be defending principles enshrined in the Constitution: low federal taxes, little spending, no public debt. In fact, however, the Founding Fathers were deeply committed to — some might say obsessed with — supporting a national debt.

Read more.

Another Review of “Founding Finance” …

… is at “Books & Culture,” the smart Christian review edited by John Wilson. And like the review linked in my previous post, this one is sharp and well informed (what’s going on here?). The reviewer is David Skeel.

Two factual clarifications, for the sticklers: 1) Contrary to what Skeel suggests in the review, I don’t say in the book that Pennsylvania allowed non-property-owners in the franchise before the revolution in that state; opening the franchise was in fact what that revolution was about. 2) I don’t call Wood and Hofstadter progressive historians. I’m not saying they’re not, but I don’t call them that in the book.