How Maria Popova Curates Brain Pickings

Reading back over a stack of old Fast Company magazines I came across this graphic of the criteria Maria Popova uses to select her Brain Pickings.

Every day we face the firehose of information we've directed at ourselves and every day we seek to find the answers we're looking for in that mass of data. Wherever we are in that torrent of stories, we all need a little help. One of the jobs of a journalist is to offer that help, to curate. As Journalists we do what we've done since journalism began. We filter information down and offer up what we think is the most important, for whoever chooses to read it.

What's interesting about the Popova graphic is it recognizes the importance of knowing what your beat is. No one can follow everything, and no one wants you to. You pick your beat, your subject, and so long as you remain the best source of information on that topic, your followers will keep reading.

Popova reads broadly, and then filters by what's important in her beat, and by what fits well in her feeds. She then puts out what she's found and reported in her blog or on twitter, depending on how much time and effort she's put into it. This thoughtful use of the appropriate platform for the content isn't anything new, but it's worth repeating.

Reporters are curating all the time. Curating may be a job in it's own right, but it's also part of what all journalists do, and whether they choose to share that work or not, and where they choose to share it, is a decision for them and their editors.

We're already curating either consciously or unconsciously in our twitter feeds and personal blogs. The question facing editors is whether one of these feeds crosses the threshold of being worthy of its own page in a publication. And perhaps the challenge for journalists is to create a feed that catches their editors' attention.