Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less

Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz

Faster, Quicker, Better? – I was approaching my college graduation as a journalism and political science major at Northern Illinois University in the cornfields of DeKalb County, Illinois, when USA Today was first published. The new national newspaper offered shorter stories, more graphics, more color. In part, the newspaper was sold in newspaper boxes that resembled TV sets or the desktop computers of the day. Anybody remember the Commodore 64? For those of us raised, in part, on long-form “new journalism” (Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and others) and, in part, by old-school, nuts-and-bolts reporting (“Done in a Day,” City News Bureau, “All The President’s Men,” and so on), USA Today was a flashy, insulting, unwelcomed new kid on the block. “This newspaper doesn’t provide insights or information,” was a common criticism and surely something I, myself, said. “It only appeases short attention spans.” Well, a lot has happened in the past 42 years – and attention spans have not grown longer. Along the way, Stand-Up Meetings have trained us to think on our feet, literally. TED Talks have groomed us to lose track after 18 minutes. PechaKucha has taught us that if it can’t be conveyed in 20 slides, with no more than 20 seconds of commentary per each slide, it’s not worth learning. Oh – and the Digital Revolution has changed … well, everything. In “Smart Brevity,” the founders of Axios describe their formula for condensing and delivering news. There’s more to it than this, but think Clickable Headline, Grabber First Sentence, Bold Subheads, Bulleted Info, Telling Quote, Shocking Number – all in the length of a telegram. Anybody remember telegrams? I’ve learned over the decades to roll with the punches, adapt to new technology, meet readers where they are, keep up with the times. Sort of. I do my best, at least. But my heart still longs for stories, well-told. No matter the length. Stories that open us to new ways of seeing, new ways of knowing, new ways of understanding the world around us and beyond. Yet, I’m reminded of a wry caution from the great actor, writer and raconteur, Peter Ustinov – does anybody remember Peter Ustinov? – when he said, “How we communicate has changed dramatically, but what we have to say to one another hasn’t advanced at all.”