Introduction Major enterprise stories — stories that take deep dives and attempt to inform readers in substantive ways or to elicit impact — these are the types of stories that encourage readers to move beyond binary and dogmatic thinking about local, national and world events. However, these enterprise stories require considerable resources: time and effort […]

How to choose which stories should be longform or enterprise Not every story merits months of reporting and designing, and many newsrooms find themselves strapped for resources. These stories should be chosen strategically. In the words of James Shiffer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, choosing what stories get the enterprise treatment is ”an art, not a […]

We’re about to tell you about several multimedia and interactive elements you can weave into your long enterprise piece. For each one, we’ll tell you what their strengths are, how best to use them and give you tips on how to seamlessly integrate them into your stories. Photos Photos matter. Stories with photos, on average, […]

“It’s no secret that fewer and fewer journalists are being asked to write more and more copy.  Only the most short-sighted PR would say this is a good thing,” PR Week’s Robert Bownes writes. Data journalism leads to more in-depth journalism and more interesting stories, but this is also a challenge for those in the […]

Companies such as BookBub.com and BookGorilla.com are offering readers e-books for as little as 99 cents, powering sales for publishing companies but also raising concerns about the long-term effects of the extremely low prices. The goal of the low prices is that readers will get hooked on a series or author and eventually pay for […]

As news organizations try to figure out how to fund costly investigative reporting, Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel has developed fellowship programs to do just that in partnership with Marquette University. The programs uses funding from donors and university endowments to allow experienced reporters to develop a story idea for nine months with the help of students […]

In addition to a five-minute news broadcast, Tampa TV station WTSP devoted 6,000 words online to an investigation on the influence a private PR consultant wields in local politics, complete with links to public records and online-only videos. Noah Pransky, who led the investigation, says the nature of the story demanded length: “This was a […]

As e-book subscription service Oyster closes over the coming months, some of its staff will likely be moving to Google. In addition, Laura Hazard Owen reports that Google is also acquiring some of Oyster’s assets, including its technology, discovery tools, and editorial content. Oyster’s demise leaves only two general e-book subscription services, Scribd and Amazon’s […]

After two years, e-book subscription service Oyster will be shutting down over the next few months. Often referred to as “Netflix for books,” Oyster offered unlimited access to a million titles for $9.95/month. Peter Kafka and Mark Bergen report that most of the Oyster team, including its CEO and co-founders, are headed to Google Play. […]

In an analysis of longform stories and their readers, Columbia Journalism Review found that 94 percent of longform readers finish the pieces they start reading, a significant diversion from the conventional wisdom that readers online are interested in shorter content. The analysis also found that readers are more likely to read a longform piece if […]