The Shifting Media Landscape

Much was written on PR blogs following last week's announcements by Dow Jones Co. that it would merge its print and online operations. In its announcement, Dow Jones said it was making the move to essentially become a platform agnostic content messenger; in other words, the company would not favor one venue over another in the delivery of its content.

Following the announcement, many respected PR bloggers -- among them Richard Edelman, CEO of the largest independently-held shop in the business -- penned an article on his blog that examined whether this announcement would hasten the death of the traditional media model. He concluded, after speaking with representatives of Forbes and other media outlets, that while it will have more of an impact on daily outlets, like The Wall Street Journal than bi-weeklies, PR pros will have to adjust their approach to one that takes into account all available outlets, be it a traditional newspaper or PDA/cell phone screen.

While I certainly won't attempt to argue with the essence of his assertion, I don't know that we'll see a sea change from this. The main reason is because traditional outlets like The Journal have a reputation that other outlets have yet to achieve. That makes what they publish, and opine on their editorial pages, by extension, more valuable. Even in the heydey of the "dot-com boom," when Internet messaging boards like The Raging Bull got lots of coverage, no media offering could move markets more than a Barron's cover story.

All this is basically comes down to the fact that the age-old saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same." While I was one of a relative few who were downloading digital content from The WSJ via a custom software product and a dial-up modem some 10 years ago, Dow Jones' electronic offerings didn't take off until the launch of its Web-based edition.

What does that have to do with changes in PR? It means that, just as WSJ subscribers haven't abandoned the newspaper product, it's doubtful that clients of PR firms will abandon their quest to appear in top-tier media, even if appearing in a well-read trade would be better for their business. The PR business itself is responsible for this in large part, because everyone promises this kind of coverage in sales pitches for new accounts. So, if it doesn't take hold, to a degree, we only have ourselves to blame.