Tag: curation

Curation: How to find shareable content for your readers

This is an updated version of a post which was first published in November 2017.

I have a Safe Hands Facebook page on which I share my own writing. I also use it to share links about topics that interest me: editing, writing, journalism, business models for journalism, health and so on. I try to share often on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter as part of promoting my business.

All this takes some time so I was gratified when a friend thanked me for the links, calling them: “Curation at its best.”

Which made me think that it might be useful to write a little about curation, and to share where I find my links. Continue reading

How to curate content (aka be an editor)

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File photo: Ivo Ruijters

The recent furore surrounding the publication of a hoax blog post at Huffington Post SA has had me thinking – about hate speech (which I wrote about here), and about the process by which decisions are made about publication or non-publication of a particular piece of writing.
In years of experience at IOL, I had more unsolicited pieces of writing cross my email inbox than I care to think about now. Over time, I learned how to make fast choices about whether I wanted to use the content or not.
I thought it might be useful to write down that mental process, for the benefit of younger people wondering how this is done. I’ll take you through my own personal checklist (note – this was never a formalised policy at IOL, and I no longer work there and can’t comment on how things might now be done at that website).
The steps below relate to online publishing, rather than print. And there are factors in the process that would probably shock print journalists of the old school (especially the focus on “hits”). But I want to paint the picture as it happens in the real world.

Continue reading