shaping stories for audiences (whether small or large), this filtering crisis we’re in may be easier to manage than we think. You see, the skills of an editor are at once novel and familiar. So our new role is new, yes, but not entirely without precedent. Early curatorial editors like Arianna Huffington, Matt Drudge, Jason Kottke, and commerce sites like Etsy.com and later 20x200.com led the vision, shaping a pace, tempo, and dare I say, patterns. These early forerunners had a point of view, meaning consumers didn’t have to sort information themselves. Such strong editors teach consumers, by example, how to curate experiences to make meaning. Consumers need only show up or subscribe.

Editing is to media as a per-
formance is to a composition: It
is an act of interpretation, rich
with opportunities for personal
insight, misguided judgments,
or brilliance. Each individual is
different, and each individual
will construct experiences dif-
ferently. In our new editorial
roles, we’re tasked with acting
as equal parts consumer and
editor. What we’re doing is, in
fact, parallel to decades of edi-
torial traditions:
Saying no. 1. While “stub-
born” and “opinionated” might
be too strong, it is a truism that
an editor’s chief responsibility
is to say no. Like all truisms,
it is probably false some of the
time, but having a recognizable
voice is essential. In the recent
documentary, “The September
Issue,” Anna Wintour exposed
hard-handed opinions neces-
sary to differentiate Vogue in
the $300 billion fashion indus-
try. Call it decisiveness. Call it
intuition. Whatever you call it;
editors have the responsibility
to quickly sift through abun-
dance to decide what’s impor-
tant. Just as our Twitter reputa-
tion may rest on our ability to
make quick judgments about
the quality of a tweet before
reposting them, so are we all
editors in media.

Whether it’s constructing a theme or splicing together a flashback sequence for a film, editors are creating connections for their audience with, sometimes, mismatched shapes and concepts. Access does not mean a free-for-all curation party.

Lacking a personal agenda. 5. An editor is creating a narrative from other people’s stories, and must be comfortable doing so. In this sense, the editor is largely invisible, yet knows the value of citing. Sourcing references carefully using “via” or another format demonstrates humility and respect for your sources.

Editors are valuable and
needed, but there is the added
challenge: the issue of choos-
ing sources in the first place.
When we’re all editors, how
do we choose content? In The
Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
talks about Dunbar’s num-
ber, the cognitive limit to the
number of people one can
have social relationships with.
As we try out our new edito-
rial roles, and choose just a
small number of sources who
are pointing to a larger num-
ber of sources, what sort of
sources will we be bumping
up against? Won’t we be in
danger of filter failure all over
again? It might look potentially
like what Nicholas Negroponte
calls “The Daily Me”—the idea
that a newspaper, for example,
can be customized so spe-
cifically to your wants that
it’s simply an echo chamber.
Finding sources is one of
the key challenges in the
struggle through filter fail-
ure, and recently Ethan
Zuckerman, researcher at
Harvard’s Berkman Center,
and Clive Thompson from the