“We are a nation of headline skimmers.”

That’s what a former publisher told our newspaper staff years before the digital era began, after a survey had been conducted on print readership. People were skimming headlines in the morning paper, pausing to read a few paragraphs of the reports that interested them. Few people got to the bottom of articles, with some exceptions: columns, reports on the local NHL team and the odd sensational crime story were more likely to be read from beginning to end.

The publisher advised us to write shorter pieces, and to make sure our headlines not only conveyed the news angle but were clever enough to draw readers into the reports.

Fast forward to today’s digital age, when many people get the bulk of their news from short posts on Twitter and other social media sites. Forty words, and the reader moves on. If people are going to newspaper sites at all, most are no doubt skimming headlines, only pausing now and then for a deep dive into news reports.

In the old days, a print newspaper may have been the only readable source of news for many, along with TV and radio reports.

Today, we have a multitude of news sites on which to skim though headlines, many of them free. Nevertheless, typical average engagement times for news reports on those sites are less than two minutes, often less than one minute. Very few people are getting to the bottom of long articles. Some reports are never read at all.

So, the old publisher’s advice is more relevant now than ever: keep your reports as short as possible.

If I were to start a news publication, that would be the rule. Give people the news in short takes, and save the longer stuff for columns and special features — but even then, nothing more than 500 or 600 words.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the mainstream news industry today and what you would like to see in news publications — particularly what might get you to read to the bottom.

Top photo: From a bygone era: an old printing press in operation, with freshly printed copy on the cylinder. (Photo credit: Douglas W. Jones/Wikimedia Commons)