Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
As anyone with insight into newsroom analytics will be able to tell you, online audiences have short attention spans. Given that so many consumers are now accustomed to getting their news from short-form digital, what role does longform journalism have to play in today’s media landscape? In this panel, two of the continent’s leading longform editors — Line Vaaben from Denmark’s Politiken and Cordelia Jenkins from FT Magazine — will share their insights on why their publications continue to invest in longform journalism. Jenkins will tell the audience about how the FT Magazine has become one of the UK’s premiere homes of narrative journalism at a time when other publications are scaling back investment in longform projects, and explain how audiences have responded as a result. Vaaben, who holds the unique title of “existential editor”, will explain why Politiken has invested in this role, why longform narrative journalism is the correct vehicle for telling the types of deeply human stories that she and her team of journalists specialise in, and how they have grown subscriber numbers and engagement as a result. Freelance writers Will Coldwell and Jessica Bateman will discuss why they chose to specialise in longform feature writing and share their tips and tricks on how journalists can gain narrative skills, how they pitch narrative features, and the finance and logistics that freelance journalists need to juggle in order to pursue this kind of work. Altogether, the panel will also discuss what makes a good longform/narrative story and how to spot one, how the longform reporting and writing process works compared to news, the differences between European and American longform journalism, and whether they believe new audiences will be drawn to longform as more people tire of social media. Moderated by Jessica Bateman.
As anyone with insight into newsroom analytics will be able to tell you, online audiences have short attention spans. Given that so many consumers are now accustomed to getting their news from short-form digital, what role does longform journalism have to play in today’s media landscape? In this panel, two of the continent’s leading longform editors — Line Vaaben from Denmark’s Politiken and Cordelia Jenkins from FT Magazine — will share their insights on why their publications continue to invest in longform journalism. Jenkins will tell the audience about how the FT Magazine has become one of the UK’s premiere homes of narrative journalism at a time when other publications are scaling back investment in longform projects, and explain how audiences have responded as a result. Vaaben, who holds the unique title of “existential editor”, will explain why Politiken has invested in this role, why longform narrative journalism is the correct vehicle for telling the types of deeply human stories that she and her team of journalists specialise in, and how they have grown subscriber numbers and engagement as a result. Freelance writers Will Coldwell and Jessica Bateman will discuss why they chose to specialise in longform feature writing and share their tips and tricks on how journalists can gain narrative skills, how they pitch narrative features, and the finance and logistics that freelance journalists need to juggle in order to pursue this kind of work. Altogether, the panel will also discuss what makes a good longform/narrative story and how to spot one, how the longform reporting and writing process works compared to news, the differences between European and American longform journalism, and whether they believe new audiences will be drawn to longform as more people tire of social media. Moderated by Jessica Bateman.
