Online audiences “don’t sit down for the full-course meal,” Slate’s Jacob Weisberg says, in distinguishing his online journal from its fellows in print. “It’s pretty much impossible to make a 5,000-word piece work online, unless you can figure out a way to break it into smaller segments.”
Speaking at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism on March 6, Weisberg told how his popular magazine tailors quality journalism for the Web. He discussed, as well, Slate’s strategies for increasing its traffic; the particular tone of Web writing (it’s generally infused, he says, “with a sense of wit”); the necessity of learning the language of links; and the happy fact that, “when something works online, it creates an addictive experience for readers.”
An audio file of the talk is available here. Enjoy.
****************
Previous Delacorte lectures:
• Jon Meacham, Newsweek
• Ted Genoways, Virginia Quarterly Review
• Rick Stengel, Time
• Jim Hoge, Foreign Affairs
