The Future Of Long-Form Narrative

New York Times Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati's keynote address at the 2009 CASE Editors' Forum: I watch what people read. Everywhere I go. Obsessively. Furtively. Seeing what they are reading, I pass judgments quickly and with confidence. I establish imaginary relationships: I used to get crushes on women who were reading Proust, or Baudelaire, or a recent issue of French Vogue. I am not impressed by men who carry big Lincoln biographies onto planes. I'm afraid of people who spend too long with a page of Dostoevsky. A young person immersed in a volume of poetry give me hope. I would trust leaving my children with anyone who can fold a broadsheet newspaper properly.

One afternoon last September I was on a long line to order lunch at this little health-food takeout place next to the old Times Building on 43rd Street. A guy in front of me – early 20s, tall, hip -- was intently reading his Blackberry, holding it up to his face, his nose nearly pressed against it. I watched what he was reading, or strained to -- a Blackberry has no cover or front-page or other tip-off to what the text might be. It was more than a message he was reading – I could see that. It was long, and he was scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. As we both got to the counter, I sort of sidled to his left, making like I was checking out the day's soups, and it was then I got a clear glimpse of what he'd been engrossed in: It was that week's cover story of my magazine. And about what he was reading – was doing – I have yet to come to any clear judgment, though I do have this feeling that I better.