Editors as Curators: What's Taking So Long?

These are tough times for editors. Senior editors are being forced to make deep, painful cuts in their newsrooms. Assignment editors are being phased out at some papers, seen as extraneous layers in the production process. Copy editors are seeing their jobs consolidated or even outsourced. And many reporters, by their nature, never had much use for editors of any stripe to begin with.

But the news judgment skills of editors should be more valuable now than they've ever been before to newspapers and other news organizations. That's because, in a world in which the walls around journalistic walled gardens are being (slowly) torn down, editors can play a vital new role in deciding how to choose content from all over the Web and package it for their readers' edification.

The buzzword for this is "curation," and that's a good way to think of it. It's an application of the same sort of news judgment that good editors use on a daily basis. (As one smart editor of my acquaintance likes to say, "They pay us for what we leave out.") With all the resources of the Internet at their fingertips, editors should be able to use their expertise on a subject or geography to sift through multiple sources of news and information and use links and other tools to assemble a comprehensive, edited collection of information for their readers.

The buzzword for that is "aggregation." And the big surprise is that it doesn't seem to be happening at most mainstream news Web sites. Instead, newspaper and TV sites still generally are trapped in their walled gardens, putting together their daily reports only from the sources they pay for: their own reporters, maybe some wire and syndicated copy and photos, and that's about it.

On the Web, you're not limited only to the content you own. You can create a rich, deep package for your readers on any subject by linking to outside sources—background, context, documents, data, video, discussions, blogs, user-generated content, etc. Even, shudder, good stuff from competitors. But with very few exceptions, this is done only tentatively, if at all, at the vast majority of news sites. (Big exceptions: Web news mega-success stories—some automated rather than hand-curated—like Google News, Huffington Post and Drudge Report. Hmmm--suppose they know something?)

This sort of picking, choosing and assembling from a wide range of sources—curation and aggregation—is precisely what modern editors should be doing online, not just regurgitating the limited content they get from their parent organization. It leverages the strength of the editor's skills: the ability to divine the best content, deep knowledge of a subject, and the ability to shape it into a compelling package for readers. That's what good editors have always done: curate. 

Incidentally, I by no means assign this role solely to editors—good reporters should be able to use the same expertise on their beats to provide readers with the most complete report possible. Fortunately, many beatbloggers are starting to do this. But it's still not ingrained in online news culture at most organizations.

There are a few exceptions to this deficiency, fortunately, in the mainstream media. The New York Times' experimental alternate home page (available from a small link at the top of the regular home page; it should be the default) presents complementary headlines from other sources. NBC's owned and operated TV stations are now running local news sites that aggregate information from multiple sources (though the sources often aren't identified well, unfortunately). Examiner.com is aggregating local news and info in dozens of cities. Boston.com angered competitor Gatehouse by aggregating hyperlocal news in Boston suburbs. And...I'm running out of examples, unfortunately.

In this day and age, it's hard for me to imagine what newspapers and broadcasters are waiting for. They all should be jumping onto the Web news curation and aggregation bandwagon. Under siege from all sides, news organziations need more than ever to establish their Web sites as authoritative sources for local news and information. Their core content, clearly, isn't enough. They should be creating aggregated sites that take advantage of their strong local brands and news-judgment reputations to provide readers with everything they could possibly want to know about the topics they care most about. Not just what the newsroom and wires can produce. (Hint: There are no space limitations on the Web. Go nuts with this stuff.)

Ironically, this failure to create aggregated sites is happening even as some smart editors foolishly complain about having their own content aggregated. That's what's behind the complaints about Google News and others that bring together news and information from multiple sources, supposedly ripping off newspapers by selling advertising against links to the newspapers' stories. Boo-hoo. Those links are bringing in readers the papers' sites never would have attracted on their own. (Want to shut down Google links and snuff 20 or 30 percent of your site's traffic? Be my guest. But first run some numbers on how much it would cost you to do enough marketing to replace that traffic. Get back to me when you do.)

No, newspaper sites–and other smart news sites—absolutely should be aggregating content, using their editors' skills and news judgment to be curators of news and information, rather than cutting editorial positions. I really don't understand what everybody's waiting around for. Take advantage of editors and their curatorial powers before there are no editors left.

PS: Must be Curation Day. Steve Rosenbaum weighs in:

Curation is the new role of media professionals.

Separating the wheat from the chaff, assigning editorial weight, and -- most importantly - giving folks who don't want to spend their lives looking for an editorial needle in a haystack a high-quality collection of content that is contextual and coherent. It's what we always expected from our media, and now they've got the tools to do it better....

Curation shifts the balance of power back to brands and publications. While anyone can make content, the decision to gather it, and present it by trusted content curators has more risk, and therefore more value.

Comments

[Michael Becker]

I think part of the reason that many news organizations hesitate to aggregate is that they fear the blurring of boundaries between the brands of news.

Using my own state as an example, if my local Bozeman Daily Chronicle starts posting stories written by the Missoulian or the Billings Gazette -- even if they're in addition to locally produced stories -- then what becomes of the product we know as the Chronicle?

Does aggregating weaken the identity of a news organization? Is that identity still as important as it might have once been in the hey dey of cities with multiple, competing news outlets?

[Marc]

I can think of two reasons you're not seeing more aggregation/curation at news orgs. They may not be the only reasons, but I bet they're near the top of the list:

The first is people. Think about it, most newspaper editors have lived their professional lives tightly intertwined with newspapers and not just as mere "avid consumers" but as uncontrolled newspaper junkies (I say that like its a Good Thing because it is, or it was). The problem is, these are often the very same people we're asking to transition often overnight to the web and it just ain't gonna happen that fast. A lot of these folks are still resistant to the web and many still even resent it.

The second reason is technology. Newsrooms have never been particular hotbeds of technology and in many cases the software used to "put out the paper" is from another time. Monolithic and exceedingly expensive it's very hard to adapt to new models (and shrinking IT staffing doesn't help here either). Now when new print pagination software does finally appearing that supports the web intrinsically and not as some bolted-on afterthought, it faces economic obstacles that weren't there before. In other words, papers can't afford to upgrade.

[Mark Potts]

Marc: Good points, but there are plenty of bright people in newsrooms (especially in Web operations) who understand the need and potential for aggregation. They just haven't been asked or allowed to do it. And it's not just a matter of tools and technology--if you have a Web content-management system that supports links (duh), then you can aggregate. It's pretty much that easy. Any paper with a Web site can and should be doing it.

Of course, limited staffing is an issue, unfortunately, though I'd argue that requires a stronger look at priorities. As Jeff Jarvis says, do what you do best and link to the rest. And with some news organizations so short-sighted that they're actually making cuts in their Web operations, in additional to paring back traditional news jobs, then maybe the outlook is hopeless in some cases. All bets should be on finding a way to the future at this point, not crippling efforts to get to that future.

Michael: The point you raise about potential confusion is an interesting one, and in fact, the main problem I have with the NBC stations' aggregated product is that they don't bother to identify the source of content, at least not up front. They present everything anonymously, as if it was their own. I think that's stupid for many reasons, not the least of which is that those brands have credibility, and they're not taking advantage of it.

But having said that, I don't see potential confusion over a news organization's "identity" as a major issue. The point is to present readers with the BEST content--and to be seen as the authoritative guide to that content. (Insert that Jarvis quote again!)

That's the theory behind aggregation: People come to Drudge Report or Google News in droves because they're one-stop shops for a wide variety of news sources. Even though those sites are designed to send readers elsewhere, the readers keep returning for more.

That's the value of aggregation and curation, as I describe it: Establishing your site as the best single source for information, regardless of source. Worrying that this somehow diminishes your own content is missing the point--if there's better content out there, your content is already diminished. The identity of the aggregating news organization comes from its expertise in curating the news, not just from its own ability to cover it.

Thanks much for your thoughtful comments.

[Stan Spire]

But will curation become another way to reinstate the gatekeepers? The advantage of the Web is that I can publish on my blog without any editor telling me what to write. I think I have some valid points, but if the New York Times doesn't link to my post, does that mean what I have to say is automatically invalid?

People are now curating on their own thanks to Google and linkage that isn't dependent on mainstream media.

Forget the top-down vertical model. The horizontal peer-to-peer model works just fine.

[James]

Curation is something that automatically happens as part of human nature. It happens in life (choosing friends, interests, food, etc.) as well as online.
Even people who explore a multitude of websites have their favorites, their trusted sources, and/or the ones they go to first. That's curation, just on a personal (and possibly subconscious) level.
Curation is a timesaver, and with time seemingly at a premium for many busy people, someone else doing the curating isn't a bad idea. The difference with what I believe Mark is proposing is the curation starts from the infinite pool of the Internet, rather than the very finite pool of a newspaper's staff.
The problem for smaller papers (i.e. where I work) is it may be too late, as far as staffing goes. My 6-day paper has 3 copy editors/layout people and a webmaster who's also had to be the IT guy for a year-plus. We'll likely lose our managing editor, who also does layout at least once a week, to retirement/attrition.
Add to that an unwieldy, corporate-controlled website, and the curation possibilities are curtailed. Ergo, maybe someone else, outside the paper, will have to take up that challenge.

[Fitzroyalty]

This is exactly what I am doing - creating local news sites for inner city urban suburbs in Melbourne, Australia including http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroy/. The business plan is that there is no business - it's a direct aggregation of local UGC content with no exploitation, no advertising and minimal intermediation between content creators and content consumers.

[santosh]

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