You are not a curator

In his excellent recent essay, the art critic David Balzer made a compelling argument that the notion of the act of curation has been devalued.

Once ‘curation’ was a word used only in the context of museums or galleries. It meant the process of providing social or intellectual value through the application of expertise and knowledge.

Now ‘curation’ has escaped from the art world to become a fashionable catch-all term for ‘someone putting a bunch of stuff together in the same place’. Balzer’s best example is that of the fast food chain Subway, who now invite their customers to ‘curate’ a sandwich through the simple expedient of choosing which ingredients they want in it.

In this context the fad for rebranding journalists as curators is a dangerous one. Compiling a Twitter list is an act of curation. Using that list to filter interesting stories or checking facts, vetting, following up, soliciting direct quotes from sources and adding context are specialist skills. This is journalism.