It's All About the Medium, Not the Media (Stupid)

Traditional media outlets are continuing to vanish right before our eyes. Just look at how few regional newspapers/magazines are in print in markets across the country. This trend will not stop. In fact, my guesstimate is that within 15 years, only a smattering of the most cherished newspapers and magazines will remain in print version. Journalists will continue to exist, albeit the numbers will completely dwindle as fewer are needed to fill digital media jobs and the next generation of citizen journalism will reign supreme.

I’m not forecasting anything that hasn’t been prognosticated before. I think that this shift will create some serious problems for the public relations industry though. And in just the last week, I’ve already heard a chorus of complaints from those who believe the natural order that exists (we are the intermediaries between media and our clients) won’t matter anymore. Thus, our value in the branding food chain could be reduced significantly. More to the point, at least three executives wondered if our livelihood was in danger of going the way of the milk and ice delivery men because of this colossal evolution.

When I heard this, I questioned to myself whether these executives had a clue. It just seemed so absurd to think that this reality could take place. After all, as a profession, public relations is one key discipline that is leading the charge to help clients communicate their stories/messages in the digital world. But, then I realized what the obvious long term problem is. Many PR people simply view themselves as media experts. To them, public relations is media relations and one cannot live without the other. For the last 60 years, our industry has created relationships with the Fourth Estate because it has always been the most powerful and effective means to generate objective, third party credibility and publicity for our clients. In a sense, we are tied to the hip.

Nowadays, that thinking is just crazy though. We cannot lose sight that public relations is the way we openly communicate and relate to our publics in a non commercial means. We can (and should) use any traditional or new medium out there that can effectively do this. The innovators in this industry have already become quasi experts at strategically leveraging citizen journalists, NGOs, academia, new technologies, and (how about this) consumers themselves to directly communicate and shift/change/reinforce their perceptions of a particular topic, client or organization. In fact, there are some firms within our field who actually spend very little time targeting the media because they have found other powerful mediums that work just as well (i.e. think about those digital blogging experts).

Those who are worried about this industry’s extinction, relax. The time has never been better for our methodologies to be expanded through other new and progressive mediums. Public relations will just look very different 15 years from now (in a good way) as so many come to realize that it’s not about the media, but the medium in how we help our clients/organizations communicate successfully.

Comments

[Steve Cody]

I disagree that physical pubs will disappear. People will always want to "hold" onto something. I do agree with the overall take, but think it's less about "public relations" and more about understanding how and where the dialogue is headed. Media shops have no clue about that.

[Bob Reed]

Nice encapsulation of where pr is heading, Ed. I agree with Steve; those pr operations that rely solely on traditional media relations are doomed to extinction.

[Jonathan Bernstein]

I would actually not be surprised if, as the current older generations pass on (including my own Baby Boomer group), the importance of having something on paper to read will dwindle to nothing, except for periodic "retro" periods.

I invite readers to read a moderately in-depth analysis of our current communications environment in a story called "The I-Reporter: Born of the Web," which was written well BEFORE CNN started using the term "I-Reporter." You can find it at:

http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/docs/the_i-reporter--born_of_the_web.html

Jonathan Bernstein
President
Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc.

[ed]

I tend to agree with your point. The next generation may not need to actually have a physical publication in his/her hands to digest news/information.

We're seeing it now.

[Michael Moed]

Technologically, I don't think we're close to leaping off the printed page. For the average non-blackberry user, easy-to-read, highly portable devices just haven't caught on - and for good reason. I recently spent some time using Amazon's Kindle which I liked, but I'm not ready to spend $350 for yet another device when I have my laptop. On the other hand, I'm not about to drag my laptop to every doctor's appt just to read a magazine while I'm waiting. The printed page is still a low-cost, high-quality product. Perhaps the "end of print as we know it" concept will go the same way as the "end of brick and mortar stores" concept from the internet boom era.

[Sam Ford]

A lot of great thoughts on the topic, Ed, and thanks for bringing us all together to think through these issues. This is something we have talked about a lot at MIT. I was interviewed for a story last year about the Kindle, and I told the reporter that, if a book called "The Death of the Book" were to be written anytime soon, it would still have to be in printed form to be a best-seller. I'd suggest that books will continue to be prevalent; as Michael points out above, there's still something unsatisfactory about longer reads on mobile devices.

As for periodicals, I think Web sites will continue to grow in prominence, and we may eventually see some big names declare they are going all-digital, especially niche interest mags that appeal primarily to an audience that spends significant time online.

But I don't think it will only be the nationally best known papers still in print in the future. In fact, there are all sorts of small papers that still have very little, if any, Web presence, which will instead probably still be circulating by having copies in all the local cafes. Geographically based newspapers and magazines still have an advantage to distributing printed copies in physical geographical space, because there's the advantage of already having the potential readership gathered together, rather than trying to attract them in the vast online world.

That being said, I do think that more and more short-form readership will move online, and that you're right about how the PR industry needs to shift the way it thinks about approaching various media forms.