Tectonic Shifts in Traditional Media
(This is just a loose narrative of the evolution of traditional media in the last 10 years from a PR person’s viewpoint. Basically, it’s my opinion based on my observation and personal experiences.)
As a budding public relations professional, I learned early on the value of media relations tactics for most PR strategies. Pitching and landing an article in a fitting print publication, or a scoring an interview with a leading voice in broadcast radio or TV was a big deal.
My colleagues and I would walk through the halls at work and brainstorm relevant angles for reaching out once again to producers at Oprah, editorial writers at The New York Times, or on-air radio hosts, on our way to the water cooler.
“I really think this is a story that your viewers would respond to,” we’d pitch, and sometimes the reporters and producers would pick up and develop our ideas and other times they would politely decline. It was just the way the business worked.
Media Relations: Less Exclusive, More Elusive, Definitely Inclusive
As time advanced, more and more of my journalist and producer friends explored other career possibilities. Whether by force (they were laid off) or by design (they wanted more creative leeway), some of them entered the PR world, started blogging, or jumped ship and changed careers altogether. They were the ones who had the foresight—or first-hand experience—that the world of news media was undergoing a major shift.
Today, the reporting of news and opinion is accessible to most anyone with internet access and the wherewithal to write.
Is this the end of the Golden Age of Journalism? One blogger thinks we haven’t even seen its Golden Age yet, other people think that there is no singular age for a constantly evolving industry as journalism. I might have to agree with both voices.
Perhaps today we are closer to what the marketplace for the exchange, display and distribution of reliable news information is supposed to look like.
As the most recent shift started taking off (maybe 10 years ago?), PR pros, corporate interests, advertising agencies and others quietly shrugged their shoulders and simply adapted to the changing media environment. They pitched to reliable alternatives to traditional media, such as HuffingtonPost.com, Salon.com and even the Drudge Report to get their “message” across.
Some PR pros had more success than others. Some strongly questioned the validity of bloggers’ works and reporting, while others embraced their uninhibited methods to maintaining a prolific web presence. Many started developing their own web presence, by posting feature releases as blog stories or piping in their own reviews of local fro-yo stands and favorite novelists in online comments, live chats, etc.
PR agencies fed many a well-written blog, with the inspiration of the writer and with their clients’ interests in mind as well. PR pros could finally do what they love and see their byline alongside their work. The press started to notice and also launched blogs of their own–for alternative content (more and different from what the print newspaper offered).
PR pros and news reporters started see exciting things happen. For one, both had evidence that people were actually reading their content! Writers were building relationships with their readers: two-way conversations. PR pros started inviting bloggers to special events to receive special coverage. (Some members of the press sniffed at sharing space with tech geeks who never went through j-school.) But for everybody, the increased attention was a heady experience.
The convergence of traditional and digital technologies as well as the convergence of editorial and marketing goals led—in my opinion—to the blurring of distinctions between:
- reporter and PR professional,
- reader and writer,
- advertiser and the gatekeeper of editorial content.
(Thanks for bearing with me as I made broad strokes to take you through my observation of media trends, which included the collision of these figurative rivers.) I believe the advent of digital technologies broke down the divide between the editorial and advertising sections of news outlets and ultimately broke down the traditional business model for news.
Tune in next week when I continue this narrative timeline…
