How Do You Get Them To Read?

Help a brother out. This comes from a friend who teaches journalism to college kids:

hi, for a teaching panel i'm on in may (literary journalism conf. in belgium), i am asked to present on this topic:

how in the age of short, fast, tweet, text, do you get writing students to read--and appreciate --long form narrative journalism? frankly, i dont know. i gave my students a gary smith profile recently and they hated it. coudlnt finish , it was ...."too long.''

know you've done a good bit of teaching, tho maybe not so much to clueless undergrads..

any ideas on this?