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A Short Story About the Shortest Story to Ever Run in The New York Times (Which Ran in the Print Edition Last Friday)

Sep 6, 2016  •  Post A Comment

An article that appeared in Friday’s edition of The New York Times has the distinction of being the shortest article in the history of the publication.

The article, by Daniel Victor, read in its entirety: “No.”

The meaning of the piece was provided by its headline, which read: “When I’m Mistakenly Put on an Email Chain, Should I Hit ‘Reply All’ Asking to Be Removed?”

The story appeared in the paper’s business section, with the text supplemented by a considerable amount of white space. A tag at the end of the story read: “The New York Times’s internal email system contributed to this report.”

Victor wrote a follow-up story explaining the original story, in which he noted that it began when an email thread going around the newsroom “went off the rails,” with recipients being bombarded by “remove me from the list” messages. Victor sent out a tweet to an internal chat room used by staffers, writing:

“Smarter Living: What to do when you’re on a reply-all chain

“It would be a one-word story

“Nothing”

Victor added in his follow-up story: “I meant it entirely as a gag for the chat room only. But Jonah Bromwich, a reporter on our team, egged me on: ‘DO THAT PLEASE.’ I thought about it longer, and was excited — and a little surprised — when my editor, Yonette Joseph, signed off on the idea.”

After a little rewriting, and as the headline took shape, the story evolved from “Nothing” to “No.”

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One Comment

  1. Agreed

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