Hear, hear. Paragraphs like this to me have barely any more relevance to the real story as your grandmother's oatmeal cookie recipe:
>As the pack thundered around the final bend, two horses muscled ahead. “It’s Mascot Treasure a length in front, but Bobo Duck is gunning him down,” said the announcer, voice rising. “Bobo Duck in front. Mascot fighting back!” The crowd roared as the riders raced across the finish line. Bobo Duck edged Mascot Treasure, and Frat Rat came in third.
I already know what horse-racing is like. I don't need this cruft, the headline promised an explanation of a novel betting scheme and that's the only thing I'm interested in. If I'm feeling particularly crotchety I'm insulted that the author thinks I can't tell the difference between this fluff and actual content.
I too loathe long-form journalism. It seems like self-indulgence on the part of people who wanted to write creative fiction but aren't good enough to be successful at that.
This is like saying Moneyball is 200 pages too long because it talks about how baseball works when everyone already knows how baseball works.
It's not a research paper. The whole point is for it to take the reader to another place so they can imagine being there, not expounding on the square root of the hypotenuse which led to three commas of winnings.
>As the pack thundered around the final bend, two horses muscled ahead. “It’s Mascot Treasure a length in front, but Bobo Duck is gunning him down,” said the announcer, voice rising. “Bobo Duck in front. Mascot fighting back!” The crowd roared as the riders raced across the finish line. Bobo Duck edged Mascot Treasure, and Frat Rat came in third.
I already know what horse-racing is like. I don't need this cruft, the headline promised an explanation of a novel betting scheme and that's the only thing I'm interested in. If I'm feeling particularly crotchety I'm insulted that the author thinks I can't tell the difference between this fluff and actual content.
I too loathe long-form journalism. It seems like self-indulgence on the part of people who wanted to write creative fiction but aren't good enough to be successful at that.