narratively ’s bet on longform

In the past, it was thought that publishing long stories was a feature of the print era, that digital readers were only looking for short, pithy posts. But that conventional wisdom has given way to a new sense that longform is actually well-suited to digital media—there are no space limitations, for starters. A number of sites have become home to such storytelling, and one of the most notable platforms is Narratively.

The site is experimental in its approach to delivering stories. It picks a different theme each week, publishing one in-depth story a day related to that theme.

The idea of Narratively, according to co-founder and editor Noah Rosenberg, is to “slow down the news cycle” and tell stories that aren’t being told elsewhere. Narratively’s tagline is, “Human stories, boldly told.”

Narratively doesn’t break news or run its stories under loud headlines. The site allows its 2,000 contributors to work on stories they wouldn’t necessarily be able to write for other publications, such as narrative-driven features or first-person essays. While the site does pay its contributors, rates can be meager, making it a good platform for passion projects or more creatively written stories about writers’ day-to-day work. Its features have taken readers to an abandoned coal town in Pennsylvania and illustrated “how a pimply Canadian farm boy rose to conquer the runways of Paris and Milan.”

“At Narratively, we can inject life into these projects that contributors have dedicated their time to, and in some cases a huge part of their careers to, but have never seen daylight,” Rosenberg says.

There is a relatively rigorous editorial process: Pitches are called for two to three months in advance, and two editors are assigned to each piece. Shirking the news cycle has been advantageous in this sense, as the site’s evergreen stories get more time for editing and its publication schedule can be rearranged.

One breakout story, “Legends Never Die” by Caroline Rothstein, chronicles the lives of the actors who starred in the 1995 cult film classic, Kids. Rothstein analyzed the impact the movie had on their lives, later producing a documentary on the same topic.

In 2012, Rosenberg led a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $54,000 to launch Narratively. But in order to create enough revenue to finance journalism, its contributors also produce branded content for various clients. The construct poses obvious questions regarding editorial independence. But thus far, Rosenberg says, there hasn’t been any overlap between contributors’ journalism and the branded content they produce for clients.

“We are very careful about which contributors are working on which creative products,” Rosenberg says. “We’ll never have a contributor working on two related things because we treat them as two very different parts of what we do.”

When a branded content project is big enough, editorial staff members are brought on to help. But the two types of work are typically separated.

“The big vision is as we grow we would love to have a separate division to work on that,” he adds.

It is, of course, difficult to ignore the fact that Narratively will soon have to answer the question faced by many other outlets—how to be both relevant and sustainable, and how to balance storytelling with branded content.

This is something Rosenberg and his team are fully aware of.

“The important thing is maintaining the editorial integrity, so we are careful about what branded content we produce,” said Rosenberg.