A Few Words About...

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007 8:42 AM

Do stories in The Washington Post go on and on and on, some would say endlessly, some would say pointlessly, some would say no problem because they have nothing better to do, or is the sudden concern by the paper's two top editors, who have a lot of power to change things, even though the staff has been resistant to such edicts in the past, somehow misplaced?

The editors have written a long memo, which leaked before it came off the printer, urging Post writers to write with fewer words, sentences and paragraphs, and, for crying out loud, get to the point.

I will (briefly, concisely, I promise) weigh in on this, but here's part of what Executive Editor Len Downie and Managing Editor Phil Bennett had to say to the staff (truncated in accordance with the new guidelines):

"For too long we've confused length with importance. Often the result has been stories that readers don't want to finish and displays in the newspaper that don't do our journalism justice. We have decided to take a more disciplined approach to story lengths . . . "

The guidelines:

"A small event, or an incremental development worth noting can be a digest item. The digests are important for readers.

"A day story, significant enough to write for our readers but based on one event or development -- 6 to 15 inches. We frequently end up with 12-inch holes in the paper. Let's use them to the best advantage.

"A single event with multiple layers or levels of information, 18 to 24 inches.

"A more complex news feature of ambition and altitude -- 25-35 inches.

"Major enterprise, involving in-depth reporting or narrative story telling -- 40 to 50 inches.

"Extraordinary long-form narrative or investigation, magazine-type stories -- 60 to 80 inches or, rarely, more."

My two cents: Lots of stories in The Post (and other newspapers) are too long. Readers are busy, and sometimes we're too self-absorbed to remember that. I've argued for a long time that journalists write too many incremental stories for their sources and often think only secondarily about readers. Everyone on this staff agrees that routine stories, as opposed to in-depth narratives or big projects, need to be shorter. The problem is most of them think that stories in their area are vital and everyone else's are routine.

Fortunately for me, cyberspace columns can run on and on without us having to pay for more ink.

At Recovering Journalist, former Post staffer Mark Potts sides with the brass:

"The snickering already has begun about The Washington Post's new internal edict about story lengths. And I'm sure there's even more snarkiness about the new policy among my old friends and colleagues in The Post's newsroom.

"But you know what? Post Executive Editor Len Downie and Managing Editor Phil Bennett are right: Too many stories in the paper go on much too long. They need to go on a diet. The problem is most acute, interestingly, not in the paper's long investigative or features takeouts, but in day-to-day beat stories. I frequently find myself several inches into a mundane Post story about government goings-on, or a local crime, or a local business development, only to realize that I simply don't care about the rest of the story. I've read enough to know what I need to know, and the remaining inches are just superfluous. Happens all the time . . . and not just at The Post, of course.

"It's probably easy to blame short reader attention spans (including mine) for this. But story lengths seem to have steadily become more bloated over the years."

Slate's Jack Shafer warns against going too far:

"If followed to the letter, much of the memo's advice would produce a newspaper I wouldn't want to buy. I don't read newspapers to save time. If I did, USA Today would be my primary newspaper. I read newspapers to take up time. Unless trapped on an Amtrak car or an airplane, I rarely read from every story. Like other hunter-gatherers, I graze on the fattest fruits and nibble on the tart and tannic pieces. What I enjoy about a newspaper is the breadth of variety and length.

"The Post memo endorses variety in length, too, so I suspect my view isn't that far removed from Messrs. Downie and Bennett's. The proof will be in what sort of newspaper this memo directs into being. I don't envy the editors the task of holding back the word torrents. Reporters overflow the banks more reliably than do rivers."

Washingtonian's Harry Jaffe agrees with part of the indictment:

"To be sure, the Post publishes many long stories that go down like Castor oil and few readers finish. But the paper also will publish powerful, passionate, and entertaining features, like Emily Wax's piece about young breast cancer survivors.

"Feature writers have been expecting this. Style led the way with a directive on shorter stories late last year. Downie just spread the rules across the newsroom and deputized editors to make it stick."

In yesterday's column, I talked about how the Huffington Post had taken down comments from some lefty loonies who wished the bombing attack in Afghanistan had killed Dick Cheney. I also made a point of saying this was clearly a fringe. Believe me, I lived through eight years of some right-wing crazies wishing that Bill Clinton could be disappeared and accusing him, without evidence, of murder, drug-running and the like. Each side has its nutcases, who thankfully are in the minority.

Bill Kristol takes a jab at the HuffPost:

"Arianna disapproves of those of us who called attention to the comments posted on her site Tuesday morning lamenting the failure of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan Tuesday to kill Vice President Cheney. These commenters 'make up a very, very small unrepresentative portion of our readers,' she now assures us.

"How does she know? If the HuffPost commenters are unrepresentative of HuffPost readers, how does she divine the views of her readers?

"Enlighten us, Arianna. Poll your readers. Ask them: Are they pleased that the attempt against Vice President Cheney failed? Are they grateful that he is alive and well? Do you hope the U.S. prevails in Afghanistan? In Iraq?"

But Andrew Sullivan says the Weekly Standard editor is out of line:

"I think some Huffposters' desire to see the vice-president assassinated is repulsive on every level, and indicative of real sickness on the far left. But I would be more impressed if I had ever heard Bill Kristol ever take on the extremists that dominate his side of the aisle. Has Kristol ever said that he finds Ann Coulter's books to be disgusting? Has he ever disowned his Fox News [colleague] Sean Hannity's equation of liberalism and terrorism in the subtitle of a recent book? Did he offer a squeak of opposition to a book titled 'Party of Death,' clearly referring to the Democrats? Did he dress down the more extreme anti-Clinton elements in the 1990s? Not that I recall.

"Maybe I have missed his criticisms of fellow 'conservatives.' If I have, I'll gladly post them. But for a man who has made a career appeasing and co-opting extremists on the far right, he is in a pretty elaborate glass house with respect to Arianna."

John McCain said one unfunny thing on Letterman while making his announcement:

"Sen. John McCain yesterday apologized for saying the lives of the troops killed fighting the war in Iraq were 'wasted,' becoming the latest White House hopeful recanting his word choice within hours of announcing 2008 candidacy," says the Washington Times.

Barack Obama had to make the same apology. But I think in both cases, we knew perfectly well what they were trying to say.

Rudy Giuliani has been trying to placate the right on the subject of judicial appointments. But Ben Smith of the Politico, a former Daily News reporter, has done a little digging:

"When Rudy Giuliani faces Republicans concerned about his support of gay rights and legal abortion, he reassures them that he is a conservative on the decisions that matter most.

" 'I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,' he told South Carolina Republicans last month. 'Those are the kinds of justices I would appoint -- Scalia, Alito and Roberts.'

"But most of Giuliani's judicial appointments during his eight years as mayor of New York were hardly in the model of Chief Justice John Roberts or Samuel Alito -- much less aggressive conservatives in the mold of Antonin Scalia.

"A Politico review of the 75 judges Giuliani appointed to three of New York state's lower courts found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 8 to 1. One of his appointments was an officer of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges. Another ruled that the state law banning liquor sales on Sundays was unconstitutional because it was insufficiently secular.

"A third, an abortion-rights supporter, later made it to the federal bench in part because New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat, said he liked her ideology. Cumulatively, Giuilani's record was enough to win applause from people like Kelli Conlin, the head of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, the state's leading abortion-rights group."

Nothing like unearthing facts when you're covering candidates.

Michelle Malkin has a different criticism of Rudy:

"I was disappointed to learn from Patrick Ruffini that Rudy Giuliani will not be doing blog interviews when he comes to CPAC on Friday--and apparently won't be doing MSM ones, either (why am I not buying that last part?).

"If I were a smarter politician trying to convince grass-roots conservatives that I really do want their votes, I might, I dunno, make some time to talk with them--and not just at them.

"Alas, Giuliani has chosen not to get his hands dirty. By contrast, Newt Gingrich's communications director e-mailed tonight that Gingrich is making himself available to bloggers on Friday morning (he doesn't speak until Saturday)."

Captain Ed jumps on a no-show for that Conservative Political Action Conference:

"McCain has argued that he has the most solid conservative record of all the major contenders, and with some cause. Yet it is hardly a secret that the Senator has a rocky relationship with conservatives in the Republican Party. After the McCain-Feingold assault on political speech, his work with Ted Kennedy on immigration, the Gang of 14 rebellion that allowed the Democrats to filibuster judicial nominees for appellate assignments for the first time in American history, and a generally hostile attitude until just recently towards social conservatives, McCain has more work than most to convince conservatives to support him.

"That's why his absence makes little sense. If he wants to win conservatives, he needs to make an effort to meet them -- literally. CPAC provides a golden opportunity to do so."

Newt, by contrast, knows how to get conservative hearts racing. Take his little chat with the New York Post:

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday called Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 'a nasty woman' who runs an 'endlessly ruthless' campaign machine.

"The conservative Republican made the surprising comments - after months of taking care not to trash the Democratic presidential front-runner - in a wide-ranging New York Post editorial-board interview.

"Asked whether Americans are ready to elect Rudy Giuliani - a leader, the questioner noted, whom Ed Koch had called a 'nasty man' - Gingrich shot back, 'As opposed to a nasty woman?'

"Gingrich added that he thinks she'll be the nominee, and cited the battle between Clinton's camp and Sen. Barack Obama's team last week over Obama donor David Geffen bashing the former first couple.

" 'Nobody will out-mud the Clintons,' said Gingrich, who added that he'll decide in the coming months whether to run for the White House. He called Clinton's political team one of the most 'talented' in U.S. history, but 'endlessly ruthless.'

" 'You can't beat them tactically . . . They're too relentless, they're too well-organized, they have too big a machine and they'll just grind you down,' he said. 'If they think [Obama] is a real threat, they'll just grind him up.'

"Gingrich's harsh comments about Clinton were surprising because he has complimented her abilities and worked with her last year on a health-care initiative. Clinton campaign spokesman Blake Zeff cited several instances in the last year where Gingrich had kind words for the senator."

Guess that was before he was thinking of running for the same job.

This is an interesting poll:

"A majority of Americans say the federal government should guarantee health insurance to every American, especially children, and are willing to pay higher taxes to do it, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

"Only 24 percent said they were satisfied with President Bush's handling of the health insurance issue, despite his recent initiatives, and 62 percent said the Democrats were more likely to improve the health care system."

Okay, Dems, the ball is in your court.

A D.C. madam who might sell the phone records that identify her capital clients? Yikes.

Finally, welcome to the virtual campaign:

"Mr. Edwards's virtual campaign headquarters in Second Life was vandalized on Monday night, according to a report on the Edwards' campaign's official blog. Second Life is a virtual reality world where users' 'avatars,' or graphical alter-egos, can walk around, talk to one another, buy things using a currency that can be exchanged for real dollars, and, evidently, make destructive political statements. Writing in the blog today, someone know as robinrising leveled this allegation, which we have edited to correct the spelling:

" Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of Republican Second Life users, some sporting 'Bush '08' tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Leninist posters and slogans, a feces-spewing obscenity, and a Photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obscenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular."

So much for the Internet elevating the level of campaign discourse.