What we borrow from 20th Century magazines
While traditional local newspapers had much to recommend them, a lot of the time they weren’t that fun to read. The need to meet daily deadlines and fill large news holes meant fewer editorial minutes and dollars to devote to making stories come alive. 20th Century magazines, on the other hand, had less space to fill and more time and money to spend on deeper reporting and well-polished prose. LA Reported will attempt to recreate key features from the heyday of magazine journalism:
01
Brevity
On the internet, brevity is in short supply. In order to build a brand known for valuing its readers time, we will institute word limits; 500-750 words for three weekday stories and 1,500 for a Sunday cover story. These specific story and word limits aren’t magic, and over time might be tightened or loosened. Whatever the exact limits, the goal is to (1) force reporters to compete for space, so only top-quality stories make it into print and (2) encourage writers and editors to trim flabby prose so readers won’t have to waste their time reading it. The famous quote “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter,” is variously attributed to Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal and Winston Churchill. Whoever said it, we agree.
02
A focus on narrative storytelling
The late 20th century was a high watermark for the craft of narrative non-fiction. Forbes editor Jim Michaels was famous for savaging reporters whose stories didn’t paint a vivid picture of a central character. A common magazine editor critique of a reporter’s story idea was: “That’s a topic, not a story.” “Topics” hold the kernel of a good story, but stories bring the topic to life by doing the extra reporting necessary to find a real human being whose life is affected by the topic.
By engaging readers’ heads and hearts in true stories about real people, narrative journalism also excels at getting readers to reconsider their pre-existing biases, in a way that an opinion piece or straight news story can’t.
LA Reported will help resurrect those lessons, largely with the help of a nationwide stable of editors who worked at places like the Journal, Forbes, The LA Times, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, The Times of London and elsewhere. (One upside in the implosion of American newspapers and magazines is the availability of talented journalists who have been trained at major news organizations.) Thanks to Zoom, we can pair a staff of local reporters in LA with part-time editors across the country. All the editors we’ve contacted have been enthusiastic about the opportunity to develop stories, coach writers, edit copy and oversee investigations.
03
Fact-checking
In the old-days of magazine journalism, a common entryway into the profession was the job of fact checker. All our reporters will also be fact checkers. The benefits are twofold. It improves the journalism we publish, and it trains the journalists we employ, who learn to be scrupulous about what constitutes a fact.
04
Variety and a sense of fun
Good magazines offer a mixture of stories, from the serious to the whimsical. We will borrow the informal mission statement Time Magazine adopted in its early days: “Important but also fun.”
A diverse blend of stories doesn’t just benefit readers, it also sets up the right incentives for reporters, who should walk into every new story hoping to be led in an unexpected direction.