As Starkman notes in his column, the fact that longer stories have declined at newspapers like the L.A. Times shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: Tribune Co., the owner of the Times, filed for bankruptcy several years ago and the chain has been struggling ever since (the Los Angeles paper and many of the company’s other assets are said to be for sale). The Washington Post, where CJR says longform stories were down by about 50 percent from 2003, and the New York Times — down by 25 percent, according to Starkman — have also been suffering from an industry-wide dropoff in ad revenue.

More resources on fewer stories isn’t necessarily bad

In that context, publishing fewer long stories seems like a fairly natural response to a shortage of income, and a need to print fewer pages on expensive newsprint. It’s also worth noting that the cash-strapped New York Times has actually published more stories that are 3,000 words and longer than it did in 2003 — 32 percent more, according to the CJR’s numbers. And the newspaper got some well-deserved acclaim for the way it handled the online version of one of those stories: namely, the Snowfall feature it released as an online series and an e-book late last year.

The Times‘ Snowfall feature helps to make one point that Starkman’s bleak assessment of the industry avoids, and that is the fact that longform journalism is evolving away from the traditional newspaper-based publishing that his numbers focus on. As the spokesman for the L.A. Times noted in a response to CJR, much of the paper’s feature coverage now includes video, graphics and other elements that wouldn’t have been present a decade ago — and don’t show up in a raw word count.

“In recent years, our longform storytelling has also typically incorporated unique videos and photo galleries. The two media – print and pixels – are seamlessly integrated in a way that a Factiva search can’t capture.”

As journalism professor Jeff Jarvis pointed out in a response to Starkman’s original post on Twitter, simple length is not a determinant of overall quality in newspaper features (and to be fair, the CJR writer admits as much in the first few paragraphs of his piece). In many cases, those longer features that were published a decade ago may have been overly generous — or indulged in only because they make good “award bait,” as one former newspaper colleague of mine described them.

Papers aren’t the only source of longform journalism

If newspapers like the Post, the Times and the Wall Street Journal are being more judicious with their use of space, and trying to devote the time and resources to fewer long pieces that provide more value, that’s arguably a good thing. And Starkman’s diagnosis also focuses (not surprisingly perhaps) on newspapers in a vacuum — essentially ignoring all of the innovation that is occurring in longform journalism outside that industry, through services like Byliner, Longreads and Atavist.

The magazine-style features that Byliner has become known for, or the longform pieces that readers share through Longreads may not replace the missing newspaper features one-for-one, but they are clearly filling a need. That need also becomes obvious when you look at some of the most-saved articles at “read it later” services like Pocket — many of them are long features from magazines and other outlets (although whether those who save such pieces ever get around to reading them is another question).

In other words, newspapers are playing on a much broader field than they used to. And all that competition makes it even more important that they focus their time and energy on features that can really come alive online, the way Snowfall did for the NYT — and if that means fewer words in fewer pieces, then perhaps that is for the best.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Jan Arief Purwanto, as well as the Columbia Journalism Review and Shutterstock / Ruggiero Scardigno

Zite was already working with CNN (its parent company), Fox Sports, the Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Bleacher Report, HLNtv, Motley Fool, The Next Web and VentureBeat.

Zite publisher partners share their “best-of” content in their own sections of Zite’s app, which is available for iPad, iPhone and Android. Like the rest of the content delivered through Zite, partner publishers’ content is subject to an algorithm that delivers personalized stories to users based on their likes and dislikes.

Publishers don’t pay Zite to be included in the program. “We believe there is adequate value being created for both parties in the terms of the agreement,” a company spokeswoman said.

Zite’s competitors are also entering into more partnerships with publishers, though their business models work in different ways. The New York Times is now making its content available to paying subscribers through Flipboard as part of its “NYT Everywhere” program, with Flipboard’s revenue derived from advertising. Pulse partnered with the Wall Street Journal  to offer content subscriptions through its app and is sharing the subscription revenue.

Newspapers everywhere are tinkering with “metered paywalls” in the hopes of hitting on the right mix of exclusion and access. The Los Angeles Times became the latest such paywall player last month, limiting readers to 15 stories a month unless they pay for a digital subscription.

The strategy appears sound but, according to one analyst, the LA Times may have botched the execution by erecting a “rock solid” wall rather than a porous screen used at other papers.

“The way they rolled it out and instituted it was very inelegant,” according to Marissa Gluck, managing partner at Radar Research.

Gluck says the LA Times implemented its barrier too abruptly and failed to allow readers to access more content through the back door of social media. She says this contrasts with the New York Times, which made a strategic decision to let its paywall be “very permeable.”

So what does this mean in practice? Well, here’s what happened after I had used up my 15 free articles.

Someone posted an LA Times story on my Facebook page:

But when I tried to click through and read it, this is what happened:

This bucks the prevailing wisdom at other publications which holds that socially shared content is too valuable to put behind a paywall.

Nancy Sullivan, LA Times VP of communications, says the newspaper’s paywall strategy was unrolled very deliberatively and that executives studied not just other publications but platforms like Amazon and iTunes. She added that the program has so far been a success:

“We are very pleased with the initial reader, advertiser and industry reaction to our membership program. In the 4 weeks since launch, we’ve seen extensive activation amongst existing home delivery customers and many new members have joined.”

The LA Times is also offering a number of carrots to go with its article limit stick. These include offering subscribers discounts and special seats at events. And, intriguingly, the publication is offering “members” early sneak peaks of columns by people like celebrity food writer Jonathan Gold.

This “subscriber as member” notion could catch on, but the paper may consider a softer sell than the big black box pictured above.

The paywall process remains an evolving one for the LA Times and others. Gannett, for instance, is poised to gain valuable marketing insight as it tweaks the meter on at least 80 different papers in the coming year.

Overall, though, papers must still wrestle with the fact that they are not “digital natives” like the Huffington Post. As Matthew Ingram noted yesterday, hybrid publications are distracted as they try to grow their digital business while also squeezing the remain profit out of their legacy print products.

But what the old-time paper pushers do have is the power of their brands. The Economist has already become a nimble digital property — there seems to no reason why great brands like the New York Times and the LA Times can’t do the same. The only question is whether they will figure it out before the sands in the print hourglass run out.