The Art of Editing: The New
Old Skills for a Curated Life
Liz Danzico
School of Visual Arts | liz@bobulate.com
January + February 2010
interactions
In a workshop led by Ira Glass,
host of public radio’s “This
American Life,” I heard him
admit, “We edit out people’s
breaths and pauses in the interviews before they go on air.”
Referring to those ums and
stammers, this well-known
personality admitted to a group
of aspiring storytellers that his
renowned radio show might
not be as unvarnished as it had
once seemed. Editing out pauses
makes the story flow better—a
measure designed to improve
his audience’s experience. Even
the non-frilly is edited.
As the Information Age barrels forward, a new role has
emerged. While platforms from
Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr
have turned consumers into
creators, they’ve given way to
more writers, more content,
and (as we’re painfully aware)
more choices. But there’s something else. Content creators are
not passing content through
traditional editorial channels,
nor should they be. The job and
the cost of filtering content
has passed from the hands and
pocket of the publisher way
downstream to the consumer.
As a result, consumers are left
in the position of having to
decide for themselves who and
what is worth their time. Which
content is exceptional and
what to tune out? Whom to pay
attention to? Whom to ignore?
Whether we accept it or not,
we have a new responsibility.
This promotion came about
without warning, without train-
ing, without org charts or man-
uals. As both creators and con-
sumers, now we’re all “editors.”
We often hear the term
“information overload” tossed
about—most likely as we skim
Google Reader, or perhaps while
we discuss multitasking as we
delete our way toward Inbox
Zero. Yet, more so than infor-
mation overload, we may be fac-
ing a “filter failure.” Clay Shirky,
author and New York University
instructor, pointed out in a 2008
talk at O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo
that information overload is not
a new problem and therefore
does not accurately describe
what’s at issue today. The criti-
cal issue is simply a failure of
filters.
Enter the editor. There has
long been an invisible tribe, a
mysterious group, who transform scattered thoughts into
compelling stories, who splice
hundreds of hours of video into
feature-length films, who segregate the semicolons from the
em dashes. These are editors
working across media sectors—
publishing, film, music, more—
to deliver transformative stories
with clarity and grace.
The editorial role has evolved
into one that involves shap-
ing conversations with audi-
ences. “Curate,” a term once
reserved for an elite group,
is being adopted by people as
far-flung as musicians and
chefs to fashion designers and,
indeed, interaction designers.
Rather than strict altering and
selecting as editors do, curators
are culling and selecting col-
lections. However the editor’s
legacy, and venerable history
of the editorial process, give
today’s curators visible models
to build upon.