Irish journalist Mark Little quit his job as a prime time news anchor in late 2009 to found Storyful, a news service with a twist. Like traditional news agencies, Storyful delivers news content to media organizations. The novelty is that this content is culled from social media networks such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Storyful journalists comb social media networks for interesting or dramatic videos, photos or other items. The information is then verified and put into context before being made available to the company’s subscribers (see here for how Storyful verifies stories from Syria).

Three years since it was founded, Storyful has attracted some major clients, including ABC, Al Jazeera and the New York Times, and generated hundreds of articles about its innovative take on news gathering – though the company has yet to break even. DW Akademie’s Kate Hairsine talks to Mark Little about why he started up a social media news agency in the first place, his belief in journalism and why he thinks journalists can make great entrepreneurs.

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Content curation helps journalists keep abreast of the latest developments in their beats. It also means that journalists become personal “human filters” for their audiences, offering them more value and insight into what is being posted on the web.

Content curation is not new. In fact, this is something journalists have always been doing by organizing information and presenting it to the public. Still, content curation is new. The role of journalists is shifting from gatekeepers to sense-makers and gate-watchers, says German journalist, Internet expert and DW-AKADEMIE trainer Markus Bösch. That’s where curation comes into play.

By curating content, journalists can embrace new tools which will make their voice heard as well as discover new research possibilities on the web. To get attention, reporters don’t have to produce exclusive content any more. They can also offer their expertise and serve as “human filters” that their audiences can trust.

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