Media-ting: how do you define editor?

Have you ever heard the term "unmediated media"?

I hadn't until the Re/Covering Islam seminar at USC Annenberg on Friday, which really had nothing to do with the arts, but plenty to do with how Muslim culture and news is covered by the press. In his astute closing remarks, Professor Philip Seib -- who wrote The Global Journalist: News and Conscience in a World of Conflict -- used it to characterize the globalized discourse that's happening on the Web and giving us an unprecedented possibility for greater cultural cohesion.

I took him to mean by "unmediated media" the unedited posts by journalists and ordinary people contributing to the digital media explosion without mediation or editing. This started a scribbling, musing word-stacking game in my mind that went something like this:

If unmediated media is unedited media, then editors are mediators.

un-MEDIA-ted

to MEDIA-te

to MEDIA te

2 MEDIA te

2 MEDI 8

m EDItor = editor = mediator

Editors are very much needed for the practice of good journalism on the Internet. But they are a rarity. Perhaps we can create a new title for them that references digital media by calling them mediators. I don't know. What do you think? We'll design the business model later to pay them...the floor is open for discussion.

(The image is of a globe called WORK TOGETHER by artist Rion Stassi; www.coolglobes.com)