In the age of distraction, many of us have already bid farewell to our attention spans, succumbing instead to the endless drone of the chirps and chimes of texts, Twitter and …

Eh hem, sorry, I got distracted.

Let's face it: most people don't have the time nor the attention span to read "long-form" journalism (also known as narrative or literary journalism). Unlike hard news stories -- which answer the who/what/where/when/why of a story -- long-form pieces can run up to 8,000 words.