Who exactly is supposed to have the time to read all of this?
Here's what to do instead: leave the provocations where you encounter them, and look for something interesting to discuss—that is, something which activates your curiosity, rather than indignation.
The New Yorker has been doing this since before it had that name. They're as good as they've always been. What they do used to be called "literary journalism" and the name says it all. It's not that it's long. It's that it's more akin to reading a nonfiction book, with all the pleasure AND utility that that can provide.
It is a chore to read these. I am not a fan.
To their credit, it is well written in terms of creativity.
Literary journalism, like non-fiction, do much more than mere fact-dumping.
And what we now call "bias" used to be called "perspective".
More like what we used to get was perspective instead now we get bias. Perspective provides a wholistic view, not a myopic, dogmatic slant that skews facts to fit their perspective.
Journalism has gotten much... much worse over the years. You can read 1960's NewYorker and find a stark difference in their ability to put away political bias and provide a deep comprehensive review of the topic.
Have you even tried reading something from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc.? While their articles are usually huge, they usually provide insightful content. Try it.
Also Hacker News: You expect me to read a well-researched article to understand a complex issue?
The loss of reading comprehension skills, and intellectual fortitute required to understand something longer than a Tweet or TikTok saddens me.
Usually what you do is read the blurb and see if you’re up for the adventure. Often I am not.
I agree with you that the lack of information density makes it painful to read if the topic doesn’t interest you. If you subscribe, I recommend minmaxing: read the one that you really like for the information (which is a lot, though not dense) and then read the fiction section for nice writing.
Often, when you make a remark like yours you’ll get a bunch of responses from people acting superior about “long form” stuff. Fairly predictable. Ignore them. They’re just offended because of the style of your remark so their responses will be defensive.