“Old” Media Wants Audio and Video for Their Web Sites Too

The Internet is changing the definition of “old media” right before our eyes, according to a panel of journalists who work for “old media” but have jobs on their web sites.

Panelists Daniel Gaines, Editorial Operations Manager of latimes.com, Keith Jenkins, Newsroom Multimedia Director of the Washington Post and Jon Fortt, “Big Tech” Blogger and Senior Writer for Fortune all agreed that PR has a huge opportunity to place content on their web sites — if PR people are hip to the way these sites work.

On this week’s Bulldog Reporter Audio Conference, the panelists spoke about what PR ought to be pitching the web sites of big media — and it’s not canned story ideas. Think in terms of audio and video, said Keith Jenkins. “Build an arsenal” of still images, audio and video on your own online newsroom — and make sure it is easy to use and the content is formatted for easy download and re-use, said Jon Fortt.

Perhaps the most stunning piece of information came from Daniel Gaines of latimes.com, who said that a full 5 to 10% of latimes.com traffic now comes from a flickr-type photo upload section of latimes.com — while the percentage of traffic flowing to stories posted by the LA Times’ print reporters is steadily falling. “Old media is changing what we are online. We’re different from what we were before,” he said.

Another example: Keith Jenkins said the Post now has a section of its site devoted to being a repository of information about the DC public school district, such as board meeting minutes and school test scores. He said people in DC, including district staff, now think of the Post’s site as the go-to place for public school information.

And of course, they all said “be part of the conversation.” That’s a little easier said than done — you can post all the comments you want and it won’t mean anything unless the blogger takes notice. So consider emailing your comments directly to the blogger or writer, and remember to move the conversation forward rather than just pitching your promotional story.