Gangrey
Vol. I · No. 1Prolonging the Slow Death of NewspapersEst. 2026

Poynter Pointer

From this week's Sports Writing conference at the institute

SI's Tom Verducci, in a handout, from a breakout session called "Bringing a magazine sensibility to the daily paper":

"The bottom line is I think newspapers think in terms of snapshots instead of movies, as magazines do. By that I mean, the newspaper will look for a moment in time to feed the deadline of the day. The magazine allows many snapshots to occur and puts them together. Often that's a case of manpower. The newspaper has to be willing to yank a writer off a beat or a column for a more extended period to get the bigger bang from a story."

Really?

Do we agree with this?

My take: We look for snapshots, sure, but that doesn't mean we can't string them together to make a "movie." I think we newspaper folks generally just make short films instead of Hollywood blockbusters. Which is fine.

Also ...

Someone asked a question about narrative and called it "the latest newsroom revelation." Ugh. Then he went on to say how he looked for "five times" the detail when he was reporting for, you know, a narrative, instead of, you

know, a "regular" story. Ugh.

Made me want to cry.

(Keep up with the conference tips and talks here)

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