Brave new world: media and PR must accept new realities

I think some people reading my blog might think that I take a macabre delight in watching the downward death spiral of newspapers. I certainly don’t – it sucks when anyone loses their job. I understand the feelings of anxiety about the changes that are happening to the media industry in general.

I don’t want this to overshadow that I have a tremendous optimism about the future of media in general. What we are seeing now is a fundamental restructuring on an industry – a painful, noisy process made even noisier the very by nature of the industry itself, an active chronicler of its own transformation. (It sucks for the factory line workers over at GM too, they just don’t write as many editorials.)

Storytelling will never go out of style though. Focused online media outlets will continue to develop and mature, adding some of the same people who get laid off today. More entrepreneurial journalists will become part of the creative destruction and start their own ventures. David Meerman Scott has an open letter to those journalists bold enough to go work for the man. (Tip: It’s not selling out if you change the system from within.)

Although print media as we know it is changing, it is being replaced with something stronger, more vibrant and ultimately more sustainable. I’m not too worried about the business model – the audience is already there, in larger numbers than ever before. Eventually they’ll figure out a way to monetize it. Smarter business people than me will work that out. There are a lot of great ideas out there, one or two of which will actually work.

The most exciting aspect to me as a PR professional is that I have more opportunity than ever before to reach people in creative and compelling ways. My universe and responsibilities have expanded. The tools are more interactive, they’re more transparent and you can’t be as lazy about how you use them.  It’s not about mass emailing pr pitches anymore.

Quite frankly, people got wise to the media/pr relationship; they could tell that it too often led to stale, formulaic and inauthentic stories. Like the media, the pr profession has to change as well. It needs to embrace social media, not for the sake of the technology, but for its ability to connect with people and have real influence. People respond accordingly when you don’t talk to them like they’re idiots or robots.

PR people need to get comfortable with the fact that we aren’t just in a monologue with the public, using traditional media outlets as an intermediary. Certainly media relations is important, and always will be, but it’s still a tactical tool of influence. The public can talk back now and they have the same tools and credibility. And they expect you to talk back to them. Some of them will rave about you, others will say things you’d rather not hear, and others will just outright lie. That’s the nature of the game today but it’s a reality that you ignore at your peril.

I think we’ll all look back on this period and see it as a transformative time. Certainly there is no shortage of hyperbole about all media dying (it’s not) and hype about social media curing everything (it won’t).  But there’s no doubt that the landscape has altered significantly and we need to rethink many of the rules and assumptions we’ve clung to over the years about media and pr.

Comments

[David Meerman Scott]

Wade, this is extremely well said. We share the same fascination / horror about what's going on. But whenever there is a revolution, people who can transform themselves are the winners. Take care, David