Longform Journalism

Did you read the "New York Times" story on the avalanche?

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek

Actually, you don't read it as much as experience it. It's not only words, but images. And it deals with the basic issues of human life...risk, camaraderie and death.

Should we do it or not? Will we jump off the cliff and have the sensation of a lifetime or will be bump into the rocks on the way down and get bruised and bloody or hit unseen items in the water below and die.

Die. That's the opposite of life, death. It's what we're contemplating every damn day. If we go to college are we buying an insurance policy or are we missing out on an opportunity to be our fully realized selves? If a friend jumps off a bridge should you? My father used to posit this rhetorical question to my desire to do something seemingly every day. But this was back before they invented the bungee jump.

So the "New York Times" is fiscally challenged. Positively paralyzed. Not sure whether to stay stuck in the past or jump so far into the future they become "Newsweek," remaking themselves into oblivion.

And the number of missteps the "Times" has taken have been staggering. Instead of focusing on its strengths, providing reporting where no one else will. But a newspaper is not only the headlines. And like an out of bounds skier himself, to truly titillate, to truly exhilarate, the paper must do something different.

You can read the avalanche story in the physical paper. But the Luddites who did this, who are self-satisfied, inured to the past, missed out. Online, you felt it, you experienced it, the eerie quiet of the mountains after a storm, never mind an avalanche, when you feel fully alive and others are...dead.

To say last December's avalanche story was a hit would be an understatement. It won awards. It was the definitive statement on the tragedy that was covered in the mountain media, but it reached more than that core audience.

And today, the "Times" followed it up with a story on a jockey.

A jockey? I've only been to the races once. And this guy isn't famous. But that's the hook.

Will I read it?

Probably.

There are a ton of lessons here. If the avalanche story wasn't in the "Times," it would have gotten little traction. That's the dirty little secret of the web, many can play, only few can win. In a world of media overload, we gravitate towards those with consistent quality who've enraptured us in the past. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor can't play. And this is not a governmental policy, but the immutable law of access technology. Yes, you can post your music online, but that does not mean anybody will listen to it.

In other words, the "Times" was in the game. And when you are, you must progress, but never throw out your basic asset, that's your core good will, what you're known for. Kind of like the musician who won't play his old material in concert. No matter how much he advertises this, patrons are pissed. They're dumb, they're uninformed, they're coming for who you used to be, they're not sure they want to be aligned with who you are in the future.

In other words, you've got to keep searching for your next hit. When the majority of your audience doesn't want you to change. Kind of like the inane brick and mortar booksellers. They keep pointing to what their customers want as evidence for both trends and keeping the past intact. More interesting is those who don't go into the store, what do they want?

Yup, the wildfire of the avalanche story was not spread by either the "Times" or its regular readers, lapping up political and world news. It was a small subset of those living on the edge who spread the word.

So the "Times" had a hit. And following it up is the hardest thing to do. You can cut "Call Me Maybe," but can you then do "Blurred Lines"? In a world that's all about today, where the label titans have no ownership equity, this seems to be impossible. One, they don't really want the left field, and if you have a hit with something different, they don't allow you to do what you want next, they run your song through a plethora of cowriters and producers, looking for insurance. But if you think there's any insurance skiing in the backcountry, your outside experience is limited to video games.

So first you gain trust. Then you slowly expand horizons.

And then you listen to nothing anybody has to say.

In other words, if you want people to listen to your next album, your previous one must have no duds, be playable throughout. In the world of the Internet people have unlimited time for that which is great, they live to go down the rabbit hole, they want to have Netflix marathons of "Breaking Bad." But they don't want to do marathons of everything.

So we keep hearing people have a short attention span and you've got to make it more brief and here you have the "Times" doing just the opposite and winning.

Could you do the same thing?

Absolutely.

But you've got to be in business for yourself, you have to have established your bona fides, you have to provide content on a regular basis, so that people won't forget you and will be exposed to your work and...you must have a reputation for excellence nonpareil.

Readers of the "New York Post" will not ever care about what's in the "Times." Ditto listeners to Limbaugh and watchers of Fox News. What's wrong in the music business is people try to appeal to everybody. Be happy with your niche, grow it, but if you're for world domination, you've got a hokey, watered-down, me-too product that will never last.

And unlike the musicians, the "Times" didn't hype the avalanche story, nor this new jockey story. They just posted them.

In music, it's all about the set-up. Publicity. We hate it before we even hear it. We're dunned to death and then we ignore it. Which is kind of the story of the Jay-Z Samsung album, never mind a ton of other works that have been forgotten. In music, we boast how great we are, in print/words/writing we just do it.

The "New York Times" did not send me an e-mail telling me to post a widget on my page or tweet about this new jockey story, spreading the word. No, they let the work speak for itself.

That's the new paradigm. How ever much you want to believe it's about publicity, it's not. It's about excellent work.

And people have an unlimited time for excellence. "House of Cards" is better than any record I've heard all year, there's more truth in it than "Yeezus." It bespeaks life. I can't stop talking about it.

And it's thirteen hours long. And I can't wait for the next season.

And the future is hooking people for the long term. We're ready, can you deliver?

P.S. Googling will get you an August 9th link that no longer works which provided a trailer and an opportunity to be e-mailed when the jockey story appeared. Because the "Times" is so inept in online marketing, this had little traction. In other words, even when they tried to advertise, they couldn't do it. But once again, despite this minor effort, it's not about the ad, but the product. Otherwise everything on a billboard would dominate its category, and it doesn't.

"The Jockey": http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-jockey/#/?chapt=introduction


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