No longer ALLOWED to jump

Cosmo, it can be done. I'm not saying that it's going to be eloquent, or Pulitzer Prize winning stuff, but it can be done. And I'm talking about both features and gamers.

 

I don't think this works very well as a hard and fast rule.

Some stories simply can't be told in 12 inches. And, frankly, these are usually the best stories to tell.

 

USA Today only jumps one story, right? I can't remember.

Our paper does not allow us to jump more than two. The other sections, it's usually one.

And I, too, hate word "charticle." I never heard that before I took the job I have now. The first time I heard it, I wanted to ask, "Are you speaking English?"

 

You ever read Her Blue Heaven?

 

Do you work for a magalogue?

 

I agree it doesn't work for every story. But as I said, I just used it as a rule of thumb and it worked out fine.

 

Most definitely. Again, that rule is not a hard fast rule. Just one that I put in my head.

 

OK then ... I guess I can agree with that. Some stories work well at 12 inches, and some don't.

In other news, I think I'll either eat lunch today, or else I won't.

 

A 12-inch "feature" is an oxymoron and an appetizer.

Twelve inches can give you the highlights of a game but it can't give you depth. Twelve inches works for some events but not all of them.

 

No question. Again, it doesn't work for every case but over the years, I've read a lot of 25 inch features that had 10-15 inches of fluff.

 

THAT was the dismissive tone I was looking for.

Well done.

 

Just because there are features 25 inches long with 10-15 inches of fluff doesn't mean 12 inches is a good rule of thumb for a feature. That's absurd. Poorly written features should not be an excuse or justification for poorly conceived features, which is what you have when you say 12 inches can work for features. It's not a feature. A profile, maybe. A pregnant brite, but not a feature. Let's just hand out leaflets and call them newspapers. Good heavens.

And speaking of that, Cowbell guy, it's "Her Blue Haven," not "Heaven."