We wish we’d been in the audience to hear this speech, but reading it is a pleasure (for the quality of its writing) and more cause for rumination about the future of what its author calls a very American type of literature: long-form journalism.  Gerry Marzorati, editor of the New York Times Magazine, delivered the keynote speech for the 2009 CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Editors’ Forum. 

He made a powerful case for the value of the 8-thousand-word-plus article of the type his magazine publishes, but also wondered — after seeing a man in the street reading one of the pieces on a Blackberry — who is going to fund such articles in the future.  Marzorati noted that the cost of these pieces can run upwards of $40,000 because of the extensive time, resources, and travel involved in collecting the material. 

Says Marzorati: ” And without BUYING that (article) as part of the Sunday Times, how is that on-line reader to understand that this piece of long-form journalism is not simply a lengthy riff written by someone at his laptop in his pajamas, but an expensively produced report? Would he or she ever agree to pay for that story? How much?”