Tom Murphy of PR Opinions pooh-poohs the notion that the mainstream media is dead:
"I don't share the view that the media is 'dead'. That's just unrealistic. The media is an important part of society and will remain so. But they are going to have to examine their business and start to think about how they can take advantage of the potential of the Internet - not the threats. They have a fantastic opportunity to merge the online and offline worlds."
Murphy quotes News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose recent well reported speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors was a wake-up call for media organizations to recognize the changing new media landscape and to adapt.
See reports on Murdoch's speech: Editor & Publisher; Buzz Machine
Murdoch's comments that newspapers have to embrace blogs and other new tools, reminded me a bit of Seth Godin's comments about the need to change the rules if you're not the market leader. It seems the bloggers have been doing a good job of pursuing a publishing model that large news organizations have been slow to adopt. Does that mean the media corporations will need to pursue a different model of blogging if they want to outblog the bloggers?
Individual bloggers and nimble companies have set the tone and created the rules for how blogging works. However, once the giants wake up, they will be looking to establish or buy their way into the forefront of blogs and RSS feeds.
I think there's room for media giants to dance with the bloggers. The result should be good for consumers of news and information.
Update: Thanks to Constantin Basturea of PR Meets the WWW for pointing out that I got confused about two PR bloggers. I orginally had Jim Horton listed as the author of PR Opinions. I meant to write Tom Murphy's name. Jim is, in fact, the insightful author of Online Public Relations Thoughts. Sorry for the mix-up, Tom and Jim. I read both blogs regularly, and somewhere in my brain I switched names on you.
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