Post by account_disabled on Apr 30, 2024 1:46:14 GMT -5
The media landscape is changing. That’s not a secret or some deep insight we’ve toiled to discover. Fake news has rattled and chipped away at the trust and credibility of, well, everything we read online. And the media business model has been having trouble finding its footing for some time. Add to that the proliferation of online publications and a possible redefining of what counts as “media.” A prolific YouTuber, Twitcher (love that word), and/or Instagrammer can now fall within the media category. As communications professionals who include media relations in their practice, the landscape is changing drastically. Begging this week’s Spin Sucks Question: What is the future of traditional media relations? And yes, you read that correctly! These are, of course, big questions for all of us in this industry. But all of our queries in the Spin Sucks community have heft! They’re all big! Add to that the fact that we’ve been branding it the #SpinSucksQuestion on social all this time, so… decision made.
The Spin Sucks Question it shall be. That was easy. The Big Question is dead. Long live the Spin Sucks Question. Let’s get to it. The Future of Media Relations: It’s an Evolution For some, this seems to be a deeper and more philosophical question than it is to others. For Kat Eller Murray, it’s actually quite simple: The future of media relations is going to evolve just as the definition of “traditional media” itself Timeshare Owners Email List evolves. Television didn’t become a traditional medium for distributing news, entertainment, and other information until the 1950s. Before that there was radio. There will always be new forms of media and new people to leverage those forms of media to share content. As a result, there will always be new ways of engaging and creating relationships and we as PR professionals just need to be aware and on top of those approaches. Similarly, Kristine Maloney speaks to how the media landscape is evolving. Change is inevitable.
The challenge, though, comes back to trust and credibility, and the onus is on us: I think one of the biggest challenges to traditional media relations in this rapidly evolving media landscape is not the shrinking of the largest, most influential outlets, but rather convincing clients that newer outlets like podcasts, blogs, and edgier websites are worth their time. There was a time when coverage in a major U.S. daily like The New York Times would reach just about everyone, but people are consuming news from so many different places today. In the past, smaller outlets reached a smaller set of subscribers. But today, many of those same types of scrappier outlets are not only putting out exceptional journalism but also utilizing social media to broaden their audience more effectively. Media relations practitioners are adapting to this and can see value in less traditional hits, but it’s up to us to demonstrate the benefits of embracing emerging media outlets to our clients.