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And newspaper articles are too damned long.

Says Michael Kinsley in an article in The Atlantic which he sure as hell better not expand into a book.

(Thanks to Freeman Hunt for linking to that in the comments section of the post about books that are inflated versions of articles that ran in The Atlantic.)

Kinsley says:

Take, for example, the lead story in The New York Times on Sunday, November 8, 2009, headlined ?Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House.? There is nothing special about this article. November 8 is just the day I happened to need an example for this column. And there it was. The 1,456-word report begins:

 Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation?s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

Fewer than half the words in this opening sentence are devoted to saying what happened. If someone saw you reading the paper and asked, ?So what?s going on?,? you would not likely begin by saying that President Obama had won a hard-fought victory. You would say, ?The House passed health-care reform last night.? And maybe, ?It was a close vote.? And just possibly, ?There was a kerfuffle about abortion.? You would not likely refer to ?a sweeping overhaul of the nation?s health care system,? as if your friend was unaware that health-care reform was going on. Nor would you feel the need to inform your friend first thing that unnamed Democrats were bragging about what a big deal this is?an unsurprising development if ever there was one.

Oh! That should hurt. It's not just padded. It's padded with cheerleading for the Democrats. No wonder we feel such revulsion.

Full post as published by Althouse on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).