Journalism

Journalism is constantly evolving with the times.  Nowadays, journalism is so caught up in the "fluff" and verbal bedazzlement.  This has been referred to as "long-form" journalism.  The article we had to read, made quite a few valid points.  One being that we make our stories and information so much longer than necessary.  What is said in five pages could be summed up in one or two, but the rest is just to prove how smart we are with all of the big words an unnecessary knowledge we like to incorporate into it.  This is where social media comes in.  Networking sites such as twitter only allow 140 characters which severely limit what an individual may post about something at a time.  Granted, the individual posting may not be a reliable source, but they get to the point much faster than journalists who take forever to get to the point.  Social media is also a very good source for expediting information across the world and what journalist wouldn't want their work spread as far as possible.  However, social media, as helpful to journalism as it may be, can also backfire.  Due to the fact that information travels at the speed of a click, people are not actually picking up magazines  or newspapers.  We look to Facebook and whatever is trending on twitter as our source of information.  If this is the turn that journalism has to accept, then why even bother with long-form journalism?  Now one is going to read it.
The goal of journalism is to inform the public with what they need to know (this is a loose definition on my part since we do not all NEED to know anything about the Kardashians, but I digress).  However, concision is no longer popular amongst journalists.  Essentially, I agree with Mr. Bennet in almost every point he makes about "long-form" except for where he says that a work is only as good as its popularity.  This is not true.  Nothing should be rated by its popularity.  For example, 50 Shades of Grey was wildly popular but such a horribly written book that painted BDSM in a negative and incorrect light (not something I would know from experience, just by the many articles I have read).
In short (in order to not be hypocritical to my topic), Journalism should just consist of what is needed to know and nothing more.  What can be said in a page SHOULD be said in a page.