Last year, I was often met with enthusiastic inquiries of "Have you listened to all of Serial yet?! It's so good." This week, scrolling through my emails while waiting for our conference room to free up, I was asked (for the third time this week) "Have you watched Making a Murderer?! It's so good!" Everywhere I look, people are plunking down and watching, listening (and maybe even reading?) hours of material on a single story, binging episodes for answers like Sherlock Holmes on the chase. After, they emerge to share this experience with a knowing and resolute air, like they just attended a murder-mystery dinner theatre and they're 93% sure they know who killed the philandering duke during the power outage (never mind the story was fed to them, theatrically, from one vantage point).
This may be a perfectly short 15 word newsflash, but this isn' that first time there's been public interest--widespread public interest--in long-form journalism (damn, that was 17). My mind instantly went back to the master of long-form investigative journalism, Edward R. Murrow. In the fledgling era of television and journalistic broadcast, Murrow didn't just report the news, he created it. Through a series of docu-reports, he informed the public of injustices or abuse worthy of extensive coverage and national attention when there otherwise wouldn't be awareness. His work contributed to putting a stop to Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare, and his piece Harvest of Shame, on the impoverished lives of migrant workers, which was intended to "shock the consciousness of the nation," did exactly that; it prompted national discussion, and helped push through legislation for health services and education for children of migrants. But that was in days before RSS feeds, the 5 Minute News updates, and soundbite news from Skimm and Summly (which Yahoo! paid $30 million for, btw). In the years after Murrow, news got shorter, our attention spans slimmer, and long-form existed only for those dedicated-cerebral-speed-reading go-getters and retirees with the time to indulge in it.
Which begs the question, how is long-form making a mass play today? What's driving our need to in-depth journalism when we could read about it in 100 words or less? The fascination with the long-form journalism, while traditional newspaper and broadcast outlets continue to condense to short-form soundbites, is one industry professionals have been quick to point out. But, perhaps we're on the cusp of a rebound for condensed content; as Twitter is about to expand it's 140 characters to 10,000, and shows about a single case like The Jinx expand into hours of coverage we have to ask ourselves; why the change? Are we finally regaining control of our fabled tiny attention spans, or is there something happening in culture that is moving us towards time-consuming, patience required storytelling? Enter my own long form investigation. Actually, I don't have time for that, let's make that medium form.
Murrow was fulfilling a need with his long form journalism; at the dawn of the 1950s, Edward R. Murrow was covering special events for CBS evening news, and was dismayed that the new medium of television was emphasizing the novel idea of showing nifty moving pictures, rather than the content--the actual news and ideas that could be told in the burgeoning medium. He dug deep to make the medium live up to its potential, and to challenge viewers to look at controversial, complicated, and important issues that could otherwise be avoided if not presented in an interesting format for mass consumption.
Flash forward to today, long form seems to be fulfilling a modern need, very similar to that of Murrow's day. Nightly news and broadcast gives you the world in 30 minutes; that's not a lot of time for a lot of world. Like Murrow's day, a smattering of feel-good stories, celebrity and local news eclipse any depth of coverage on real issues. The news reports what's happening right now with a crew of talking heads carted in to "investigate" the insights from random pedestrians on the street, or whatever official will talk to them. The news-broadcast medium is not living up to its potential. But, new mediums, podcasts and streaming services who can invest in whatever content they choose, have entered the market. How do you explain the complicated failing of the justice system for Steven Avery? You tell the story on a place where people tend to spend 9 hours in their sweatpants in-front of the TV, chain-watching content. And you serve it up in a decidedly non-news way.
Public interest in murderers has always sparked public interest, so the fact Serial or Making a Murderer is flourishing, in that regard, is to be expected. But why are there long-forms on murderers, but not on the murder of Eric Garner? Or the Flint water crisis? Or refugees being denied asylum? Is our interest in long-form limited to long-form entertainment, rather than long-form journalism? Perhaps if these stories are packaged in such a way to feel more like episodes of your new favorite show, rather than the "work" of news, they could succeed. After all, we run to Netflix and podcasts to escape the world for awhile; if we want someone to watch the news in this place, it's got to feel a lot more like "TV" than journalism. As to if there are any modern-day Murrow's who will take up the mantle of these less sexy, vitally important issues, to that I can only say good night, and good luck.
