When did "long" become a dirty word?

i don't know how much i like this design compared to other e-ticket stories, but here is tom friend's story on the oklahoma state men's basketball plane crash, focusing on a player who died, an assistant coach on the other plane who was originally supposed to be on the plane that crashed and the dad of the player who died. i give espn credit for trying different designs/presentations with video, words, pictures, graphics, etc.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=110126/OklahomaState

to the original question: long isn't a dirty word to me; i just read the s.l. price on the western pa. high school football team and its environs. i clicked on all 12 pages, read it start to finish.

echoing others, when i say a story is too long, i usually mean the story needed a good editor or at least a better edit -- if the story can be told in 60 inches rather than 80 and not lose any heart, then so be it. i feel the same way about a 20-inch everyday feature that can be written in 16 with tight editing.

 

Long doesn't equate good. Good doesn't mean it has to be long. It takes what it takes. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

well said

 

Long becomes a dirty word when the writer mistypes it, the copy editor reads over it and it comes out in the paper as "dong."

 

It's funny how the internet, which has the space for good in-depth stuff, has become too cumbersome an environment to read that good in-depth stuff.

You're tied to a computer and have to save the page or URL if you leave, unlike just putting down and picking up a book or magazine. iBook and eReaders have made this easier, but you can't read most of the best stuff on there yet. At least not for free or for a reasonable subscription.

And now there's Twitter, RSS, ect. popping up; the constant allure to check your e-mail and Facebook. Worse than sitting in a noisy room to me.

After I've read a long-form piece online, I'm bushed.

 

He said long. Huh huh.