There's a difference between looking into the context around the issue, and filling the article up with endless irrelevant stuff like the weather on the day of the interview or a description of some person's apartment decorations, and often pages of this before you even learn what the point of the article is supposed to be.
This article had a clear subtitle that showed where the story is going: "If you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back." -- this immediately lets you know that this is about a specific incident (not a hypothetical scenario) and why the threat was made. It then proceeds to add new, obviously relevant information with each paragraph.
This felt like a good article, despite its length, but most "long-form" content is trash.
This article had a clear subtitle that showed where the story is going: "If you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back." -- this immediately lets you know that this is about a specific incident (not a hypothetical scenario) and why the threat was made. It then proceeds to add new, obviously relevant information with each paragraph.
This felt like a good article, despite its length, but most "long-form" content is trash.
Compare https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/the-gambl... (bad) with this or https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-faro-the-w... (good).