Disclaimer: I am a long-time New Yorker reader. In case you aren't familiar with the New Yorker, let me bore you. We're talking about an old (1925), well-estab

Disclaimer: I am a long-time New Yorker reader. In case you aren't familiar with the New Yorker, let me bore you. We're talking about an old (1925), well-established and iconic print publication. I don't know if the writers have a word count to meet, but I think pride over the generally very high quality writing is a big part of the New Yorker's culture. I don't think that anyone is being rewarded for filling whitespace in this case. From the New Yorker's reputation and my experience reading it, I imagine the editors have a very different metric for quality. Personally, I find the depth and breadth of writing in the New Yorker one of the most valuable things about it. For what it's worth, the New Yorker does have a "Talk of the Town" section which probably DOES use succinctness as a standard - the pieces are very very short. Also, James Surowiecki writes an economics/business column which is only a page long, and usually brilliant and concise.