The Oxford Dictionary meaning of 'Curating' or 'Curation' is: "Select, organize, and present (online content, merchandise, information, etc), typically using professional or expert knowledge." And 'Journalism', says the Cambridge Dictionary, "is the work of collecting, writing, and publishing news stories and articles in newspapers and magazines or broadcasting them on the radio and television." Boring definitions - kill the soaring spirit of the modern, bustling 'Smart Newsrooms' operating on the right side of the Digital Divide.
At the risk of revealing our tradecraft and hurting the egos of us 'smart' online journalists, let me define our occupation in one word: Curation! On this website we select, organise and present content for our readers/viewers in a way which is far, far better that how our rivals select, organise and present content. Take the judicial reforms bill or Robin Williams or even Jeetan Manjhi -- we 'curate' them better than the best (it's altogether a different matter that our rivals too make the same claim, but who cares for them?)
The history of 'Curation' is actually short. It took birth the day original story-telling or reporting died. In the absence of these two entities, 'Curation' became the King. So what started was a 'chicken-and-egg exercise' (mind you, you'd be a dinosaur if you regarded C-and-E to be a problem any longer) -- we would be curating the best curated content which, in turn, was curated itself. The more downstream you go, the stronger are the currents of curation till you reach a point where you suddenly realise that while you started with the prime minister's Red Fort speech, you ended up in Bipasha Basu's engagement.
Now if you are on the wrong side of the digital divide and trying to trace the 'original' content, then be ready for a long haul. That's because the original story has almost disappeared, the person who got it is no longer the one telling it and scores of News Desks across the country are rewriting it, adding elements into it and making a 'hash'(tag) of it.
An airline meal is thus served, and consumed by today's jet-set reader - wanting to know it all in one click or touch. Who cooked never matters, who warmed it up does.
So, on this Independence Day, here's a little journalistic prayer: Give me and my 'smart' news room freedom from curation so that we can atleast try trace our roots. Albeit for 24 hours...
(This piece was curated from the author's many other pieces that read almost the same).
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