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…