Fast Company is running a truly great several-thousand-word epic article by Richard Behar called simply "China in Africa." The gist is that China is going about establishing an enormous footprint on the African continent to fuel its more ever more modern lifestyle while the rest of the world ignores Africa altogether. Here's a key paragraph:

Influence of that magnitude threatens to wipe out a decade's worth of efforts by global institutions to push African governments to improve human rights and government transparency. As Sahr Johnny, the Sierra Leonean ambassador in Beijing, once said about China's projects in Africa: "They just come and do it. We don't hold meetings about environmental-impact assessment, human rights, bad governance and good governance. I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying Chinese investment is succeeding because they don't set high benchmarks."

It's eye-opening, remarkably entertaining, and -- brace yourself -- really long. In fact, it's the longest article Fast Company has ever published. But it is worth the investment of your time. I promise. ... I can't do justice to Behar's special report, masterfully edited by executive editor Will Bourne, in this small space, but I hope you'll settle in and read this saga. It's the kind of article that people like me go into this business to help create.

The editorial team at Fast Company clearly have their chest puffed out over this work, as they should. The hired a talented reporter, assigned to the story a strong editor, and produced something that adds to the world's understanding of itself.

And that excellence leads me to two points. The first is that IMHO and from my narrow perspective "China in Africa" is immensely valuable journalism. There's no breaking news here, but there is reporting and perspective that equips me better understand this crazy madcap world. I remember very clearly a time when Jane and I were backpacking through Ghana in the summer of 2001 and found ourselves sitting in the gorgeous National Theater in the capital city of Accra that was designed, financed, and built by the Chinese and thinking, "hmm, now just what the heck is going on here." Seven years on, I understand that experience better because of the work of Behar and his editors.

But the second point is more on my mind these days as I make a go of it as a writer. Is "China in Africa" is the last gasp of a dying era? Let's be frank -- an article of this length and topic makes no sense on the web. I'm genuinely curious of whether if all journalism moves online, which frankly looks entirely likely, is there any hope for keeping many-thousand-word pieces like this viable?

First off, it's ridiculously, absurdly long. I counted 38 different browser screens of text to click through. If you want to check out the infographics than ran side-by-side the article in print, that's 7 more screens. It's clearly a print piece ported, however awkwardly, to the publication's website.

It is indeed a awkward fit. I've mentioned here before that I've been reading some of Jakob Nielsen's stuff (about 10 years after every other geek, I know) and what's perfectly clear is that we read differently online. Jakob has some eye tracking research that shows how people "read" websites. For one thing, we scan the top section and then quickly whip down the left side of the screen looking for whatever might jump out. It's only natural that what works best on line is what we might as well call hook journalism -- grab your reader or your out o' luck. Of course, all journalistic writing has always need a hook. But in the past, hasn't the hook been more of the plating and less of the entree?

And then there's the cost factor. Something like "China in Africa" is incredibly resource sucking. I was just reading earlier this week the latest news about how newspaper ad revenue is on track to have its worst year ever and that some publications are even considering dropping a day or two of their print editions. Without some sort of sustainable revenue model, how exactly do you support a reporter out in the field in four different sub-Saharan countries? It's not cheap to pay for a reporter to spend more than a month jumping from Congo to Equatorial Guinea to Mozambique to Zambia. Who is going to pay for that for a reporter to simply come back with a hell of a story?

So, let me cut to the chase -- do we have a plan for making stories like "China in Africa" possible in the future? Is there even a hint of a model for journalism like that on the horizon? I'm hopeful, because that's my nature, but I haven't seen much to justify that hope. Of course, there are some interesting new journalism projects bubbling up, in particular Pro Publica and The Huffington Post's OffTheBus. The thing is, it looks like to me a lot like as the world gets increasingly complex, we're focused on building journalistic tools that are narrowly tailored to finding bad guys. For example, this is Pro Publica's self description:

Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with "moral force." We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

And OffTheBus is solely geared towards the '08 presidential election, and its most notably accomplishment thus far is Mayhill Fowler, who without making a judgment either way, has made her name in gotcha journalism. We're scandal obsessed, on the hunt for the flip flop, and I'd argue that while that might be a good plan for one kind of a journalism it can't be a replacement for the whole endeavor.

So, I'll ask it again: should be resign ourselves to the idea that "China in Africa" is the last gasp of a dying era? I'd really like to know the answer to that question. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I haven't found any good answers yet. I really do want to learn here, so if you have thoughts please share them.