Josh Sternberg is the founder of Sternberg Strategic Communications and authors The Sternberg Effect. You can follow him on Twitter and Tumblr.
Over the past few weeks, many worries about the death of journalism have, well, died. Despite shrinking newsrooms and overworked reporters, journalism is in fact thriving. The art of information gathering, analysis and dissemination has arguably been strengthened over the last several years, and given rise and importance to a new role: the journalistic curator.
The concept of curating news is not new. One can look to the supply-chain process of a news organization to see that several roles (editor, managing editor, etc.) have curation as a core competency; that is, the organizing of information filed by reporters into a deliverable packages for readers.
But with the push of social media and advancements in communications technology, the curator has become a journalist by proxy. They are not on the front lines, covering a particular beat or industry, or filing a story themselves, but they are responding to a reader need. With a torrent of content emanating from innumerable sources (blogs, mainstream media, social networks), a vacuum has been created between reporter and reader — or information gatherer and information seeker — where having a trusted human editor to help sort out all this information has become as necessary as those who file the initial report.
“Curation,” says Sayid Ali, owner of Newsflick.net, “gathers all these fragmented pieces of information to one location, allowing people to get access to more specialized content.”
Curation as an Intermediary
Andy Carvin, senior strategist for NPR who runs their social media desk, finds meaning in the word “media.” “It means being in the middle — in this case, between sources and the public. So curating … really isn’t that different than what reporters have always done; it’s just in real time and a hell of a lot more transparent.”
As Ernie Smith, editor of ShortFormBlog sees it, curators are like tour guides. “Good curators know where to find interesting things because they know the paths and can provide a knowledgeable voice to make things a little easier to parse. A good curator can see a clear direction and show others the way.”
Curators help navigate readers through the vast ocean of content, and while doing so, create a following based on several factors: trust, taste and tools.
Building Trust
Unlike a reporter who is immersed in a particular industry or beat, a curator often has a day job. Some are in the media industry and have access to their publication’s news sources; others are obsessed with the news and want to provide their network, community or followers with what they think is important. But the common thread between curators is that they are viewed as trustworthy sources of information.
Torie Rose DeGhett, a staff writer at Current Intelligence, and blogger at The Political Notebook, agrees. “Curation has to be credible. If all I do is use my curation to attack somebody, or if I blatantly try to confuse an issue or make it seem like something it isn’t, that’s wrong on a fundamental level. If I do that, then I can’t be trusted as a source and people should have no reason to take what I do seriously.”
Building trust is important to validating curation as an evolutionary form of journalism, and many curators believe they should be held to the same standards as journalists.
Ethical standards and transparency (like citing/crediting sources) are essential in building trust in a curator. DeGhett says, “The point is to share [news items] and lead people to it, not to claim it as your own… [But] my selection of sources is intended to make an argument, and to support certain things, not to present everything that’s out there or every side.”
Carvin’s transparency is a great template for curators. “I publicly describe my Twitter feed as a one-man newsgathering operation that’s open to the world for viewing.” He relies on people to feed him information, which he retweets to his followers and lets them “help me figure it out by translating, adding context, finding independent sources, etc.”
However, some curators believe that since they are not journalists creating content, journalistic standards don’t necessarily have to apply.
The market researcher, curator and blogger who goes by the name “Kateoplis” says since “there’s virtually no editorial content attached to the articles we promote,” curating information doesn’t have to be held to the same standards as reporting. She continues, “We simply highlight the most valuable posts.” She does, however, believe there should be ethical guidelines to help curators, and in her role as an editor of the Tumblr news section, she provided their guidelines.
Smith thinks “that curators should have more freedoms than traditional reporters in a couple senses, in that part of the appeal of good curation is that it carries the person’s footprint. Opinion isn’t really a bad thing, and in fact gives the content shape in this context.” When considering reporting standards, he continues, “the important part is 1) That it’s consistent, and 2) That it’s accurate. You have to do a little more direct listening to readers as a curator, because in a lot of ways, they are your sources.”
Determining What’s Newsworthy
When a reporter covers a beat, they come up with story ideas via different methods — something in the industry that interests them, seeing a news hook another reporter may have alluded to (or missed), suggestions from their editor, and story ideas from a public relations team. And more often than not, reporters stay within the confines of their beat. Curators don’t have to.
Curators aggregate and reblog content they find interesting, or think their readers will find interesting. Curators also seem to fall into one of two categories: Aggregation and reblogging content without any editorializing, or providing additional thoughts as part of their reblog, retweet, etc.
The blogger behind PantslessProgressive determines what’s worthy of reblogging by “finding out what others are saying about that source, by observing who they interact with, and by the frequency and depth of their activity.”
DeGhett reblogs “if it provides information that I think is really important to know or have awareness of — something about veteran’s issues, gay rights, transgender awareness, etc.” She’ll reblog if an article makes a great point or “brings up a great fact I think everyone should know.”
Even though curators share certain characteristics of editors, they don’t enjoy the exact same role. When a curator gathers information for their community, the content is something they are passionate about. Reporters, as we’re taught, are not supposed to be passionate and interject opinion into their story.
What’s Next For Curation?
As journalism continues to evolve and adapt to advances in technology and the influence of social media, the role of the curator will continue to grow. Trusted curators, standards and better tools to filter content will be two things to watch over the coming months and years. Additionally, creating a work force of curators — whether freelancers or paid staff members — will help curation grow. Many news organizations, for example, are on Tumblr acting as curators, reblogging not only their publication’s content, but also other news sources that are relevant to their audience.
As Anthony DeRosa, proposition leader at Reuters says, “We all have access to pretty much the same information sources, aside from the investigation and journalism that people at news agencies perform. There’s enough out there for someone who simply wants to be a helpful guide, to plant their flag and be a good resource for whatever it is they’re interested in. You can use RSS, Twitter, Storify, Storyful and any number of other tools to stay on top of what is happening and be a human filter for what I should be looking at.”
More Digital Journalism Resources from Mashable:
- Facebook’s Growing Role in Social Journalism
- 10 Predictions for the News Media in 2011
- The Future of Social Media in Journalism
- The History of Content, From Cave Paintings to Flipboard [INFOGRAPHIC]
Image courtesy of Flickr, B_Zedan
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