peHUB and peHUB Wire Will Continue After Primack Leaves

Big news in the world of venture capital and private equity media and PR: Dan Primack, author of the peHUB Wire daily email newsletter and creator of its web site, peHUB, is leaving Thomson Reuters to create a similar offering for CNN Money's soon-to-be-revamped Fortune.com site.

Over the past several years, Primack has become arguably the single most important journalist covering VC and PE, largely through his excellent work first on the daily newsletter and then on the web site. Lots of people in the industry can pick a beef with Dan over the way he has portrayed certain news or his tenacity in covering things that they would have rather not had covered, but he has proven himself to be a thorough, dogged and very hard-working reporter.

Now he moves on to Fortune.com, where he will be covering not only VC and PE but also Wall Street and M&A through a daily email called "The Term Sheet" and a sister web site. He starts on Sept.7, the day after Labor Day.

While all the other coverage I've seen on the web has focused on Primack's move to Fortune and the CNN.com web site, my key question was about the VC/PE daily newsletter and the web site. Would they continue without Primack, who once wrote about creating the newsletter simply to raise a small amount of advertising money to fund a pet project, and has been both the brains and the brawn behind it ever since?

Larry Aragon, editor-in-chief of Thomson Reuter's Private Equity Week and VC Journal (the print/online pubs that spawned peHUB), emailed me that yes, they would both continue after Dan leaves next Thursday, though he did not identify who would be staffing them. They know they have some big shoes to fill, and it's not a slam-dunk that peHUB will be as strong, or as vital a read, as it is are now.

From a VC/PE media relations standpoint, however, this is great news -- Primack is going to bring his coverage of VC and PE over to the huge CNN.com web site, while Thomson Reuters will continue to have its offering.

Here's some other coverage on the web so far:

Statements from Fortune.com and Primack

Interview with Dan Roth of Fortune.com about Primack

Betnovate

Voltaren

NY Times' Brad Stone Moving to Bloomberg Businessweek

Brad Stone, who's been with the New York Times as an SF-based tech reporter for a few years after being Newsweek's tech reporter, is leaving the Times to join Bloomberg Businessweek.

Despite Media Upheaval, Business Journalists Are Optimistic About Their Futures

A surprising study out of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University reports that business news journalists remain surprisingly optimistic about their jobs and careers, despite the upheaval and radical downsizing going on in the media industry.

“I found a shocking amount of optimism, grit and determination in those findings,” said professor Tim McGuire, who retired in 2002 as editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. McGuire is the Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism at ASU’s Cronkite School.

Specifically, McGuire was surprised that almost a third reported an increase in pay over the past two years and that seven out of 10 business journalists say they are more or just as satisfied with their jobs as they were five years ago. Almost three-fourths plan to stay in journalism for the next five years.

Post on the Reynolds site here, including a slide deck about the study.

Post on McGuire's blog here.

How to Work With "Online Influencers"

What's an "online influencer?" The phrase sounds lofty, and is meant to describe someone who is actively involved with sharing information on sites like Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

But according to Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there's a simpler definition that works just as well: "someone who shows up." In other words, in today's connected world, all you really have to do to distinguish yourself is to be active in online communities.

And how do you "work" with them? Simply, you engage them, Rainie says. You connect with them, let them know you have seen what they are writing/saying/posting, and offer your input, feedback, point of view or additional information. That's really it.

Rainie, who is a terrific speaker, was the guest today on a Bulldog Reporter audio conference. One of his big points is that we are now in an era of "networked individualism," in which people find connect and support from all types of sources and not just their friends and neighbors. That means that business, institutions and brands can be as connected to people as they want to be, serving as "friends," allies, conversationalists, and information sources.

Some other insights:

• Pew is very interested in the next wave of location-based apps, such as foursquare, that represent a melding of the information-based Internet with GPS technology, or as he put it, geo-knowledge systems.


• Pew is also working on research into how the Internet has changed all manner of institutions, and how teenagers are living their lives in this connected world.


• Asked to look into the future, Rainie said the biggest change is likely to be a "smarter" web, in which the computers become even better at interacting with us based on our preferences and other factors.

To Get Coverage on Bloomberg, Show Them the Money

Bloomberg News is all about money and deals, so for private equity and venture capital firms, the watchwords are: show them the money.



[caption id="attachment_1239" align="alignleft" width="120" caption="Dan Colarusso"][/caption]

That's a paraphrase from the illuminating one-on-one session with Dan Colarusso, U.S. Managing Editor of Bloomberg TV, who was interviewed at the PEI Investor Relations and Communications Forum by Emily Mendell, VP of Strategic Affairs & Public Outreach for the National Venture Capital Association.

"We're not try to cover venture capital in a traditional sense," said Colarusso. "We want to get to exits, real business, Bloomberg style -- show us the money."

Other insights from Colarusso:

• They are in the middle of remaking Bloomberg TV. They've hired staff from NBC, FOX and CNN, among others. "We're trying to be television - we're in 50 million homes, broadcasting 13 hours, 6am-7pm."


• They are arming print reporters with handicams to put stories directly up on Bloomberg TV


• The larger Bloomberg strategy is to take their great newsgathering army, get information and distribute through 4-5 different pipelines. There are now 152 Bloomberg bureaus around the world.


• He looks at footnoted.org, siliconalleyinsider, paidcontent.org

****

Next up was an interview with Dennis Berman, deputy bureau chief for money and investing of the Wall Street Journal. It was less nuts-and-bolts and more philosophical. Berman said of private equity that he would like to see less arrogance, more humility and that he would like to see the industry directly addressing the conflicts of interest that can come up. For instance, working with management to take companies private and promising them significant ownership stakes in the new company.

"There's a culture of privacy and secrecy in private equity that doesn't create the benefit of the doubt that you would expect," Berman said.

He also said that the Journal is much less interested in covering venture capital than it used to be. "We're covering it the way we were in 1999. There's not that much interest in it."

Spoken like a true Manhattanite. Memo to the Journal: we here in California are VERY interested in venture capital!

Two Good Examples of What May Be Lost if Print Journalism Dies

There were two great stories in The New York Times yesterday that were obviously produced by talented, experienced, well-paid journalists. I can't imagine an online model that would produce such stories, and it will be our society's loss if or when this type of writing and research is no longer done.

The first story is an important one: the story of homeowners in Florida who have stopped paying their mortgages but who are still happily living in their homes, because the legal system can't process all the foreclosures in that state. I had no idea about this practice, as I live in California, where lenders can initiate foreclosures without court approval. As the story reported, Florida and 18 other states require a judge to sign off on the foreclosure, and naturally, there is a huge bottleneck.

This story was interesting to me for its portrayal of the practical economics of several delinquent homeowners and how this situation affects the larger picture of housing, mortgage finance and the overall economy.

The other story was a beautifully crafted piece about the colorful tops that thoroughbred jockeys wear, called "silks." The "news hook" of the story was this week's running of the Belmont Stakes, but it was what they call in the media an "evergreen," meaning it really could have run anytime. The story painstakingly but smoothly traced the story of silks (they aren't made out of silk anymore), why they all look distinctive, how they are maintained, and most enjoyably, it introduced us to two sisters who live near Belmont and are the "Betsy Ross" of the silk-making industry. I just enjoyed reading it for the pure pleasure of it. And since I pay for home delivery of the print edition of the Times, I can do so guilt-free, like a public radio listener who pledges.

Let's be clear: The New York Times is not in imminent danger of discontinuing its print edition or firing its writers. But many other print media are so endangered, and that's where a lot of great writers, like the ones who produced these pieces, are employed.

Another thing: I'm no sentimentalist when it comes to print media, especially big city daily newspapers. I believe their owners and top editors have bumbled their way to the point we are at. But that doesn't change what will be lost.

Not-for-Profit May Be the Future of Local News

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, a new non-profit news web site just opened, The Bay Citizen. It is funded by wealthy individuals and foundations. I think this model is one of the best hopes for funding U.S. journalism.

There's nothing sacred about the objective of turning a profit and creating wealth for shareholders of a newspaper. That's just how most of them developed, back when selling retail and classified ads was a good enough business to more than fund the cost of newsgathering. This coincided with the rise of U.S. metropolitan areas and then the expansion of their suburbs. Sellers of everything from food to homes to cars needed a way to reach these newly congregated consumers, and printed newspapers turned out to be a good way to do that.

Now, in the 21st century, some huge things have changed. The cities and suburbs are largely built, and the people who are maturing in them now have grown up with the Internet. They have almost no need for a printed version of the news, which remains an expensive way to gather and distribute news and information.

Since there's still a societal need for the gathering and dissemination of news, there need to be new ways of doing it, and The Bay Citizen may be one model. Jeff Kaye, an old friend of mine, has  come out with a book on the subject, Funding Journalism in the Digital Age. I've just gotten a copy and haven't read all of it yet, but it's got chapters on possible models such as micropayments, e-commerce and citizen journalism, as well as one on sponsorship and philanthropy.

New York Times Plans to Start Charging for Content -- Will it Work?

The New York Times plans to start charging for some of its online content on January 1, 2011, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The decision to start charging had been revealed previously. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller gave the date certain at a media event last week.

Earlier, the Times said that it would start a "metered model," under which the newspaper's website "will offer users free access to a set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number."

A couple of years ago, they tried to put their editorial/op-ed content behind a pay wall, and the plan failed miserably and they opened it up.

The whole debacle of newspapers posting all their previously paid print content online has been one of the major problems for newspapers in the Internet era. At the time they did it, the thinking was that they had to give away their content to capture "eyeballs," and that they would figure out how to get paid later. They never did, and now they find themselves with millions of readers who have become addicted to free access to journalist-produced content -- which is quite expensive to produce.

If anyone can pioneer a limited revenue model, it's the Times. They aren't the greatest newspaper in the world for nothing. They innovated many elements of the media that we have long taken for granted, such as the op-ed page and front-page news summaries.

The real question is how much they could possibly generate with this metered model, and whether it will contribute in a meaningful way to the high cost of newsgathering.

AP Finally Wakes Up to the Internet Opportunity

The Associated Press is a venerable, old, old, old media institution that still plays an incredibly important role in the media, communications and the Internet. But up til now, they've approached the Internet in about as conservative and unimaginative way possible, essentially continuing to file their stories and providing that content to their members (major newspapers) or selling it (to CNN, for example).

Finally, finally, the AP is waking up and maybe making a baby step toward embracing the Internet opportunity. From Poytner Online:

The Associated Press aims to be the "news" button on your next mobile device, right next to e-mail and weather. Jeff Litvack, the wire service's general manager for mobile and emerging products, insists the AP and its more than 1,400 members deserve that placement. And more to the point, without the combined clout of the news industry behind its efforts, that coveted spot could end up going to Yahoo or Google.

"We need to be there first. The data supports the fact that news is an important category" on mobile devices, said Litvack during a phone interview last week. "We believe this is on the rise."

Litvack, a founder of AP's mobile efforts, is now the product development lead in the newly created Gateway business division. CEO Tom Curley announced the unit's creation last month; its mission is to pursue new opportunities for the AP on digital platforms such as the iPad and other mobile devices.

Top Tech Products of the Decade Were All About Communications

HuffPost has a "top 11" list of tech products of the decade, and I was stunned at how many of them were communications tools that radically reshaped the way we think, interact, and entertain ourselves.

Among HuffPo's top 11:

• iPod: little needs to be said, except, do you remember your life before having gigabytes of music in your pocket to listen to on demand?


• iTunes: made digital music downloads mainstream


• TiVo: the neutron bomb that hit TV. Do you remember when you had to watch TV in the order it was presented, or pop in a VHS tape to "time-shift"? How last millennium!


• Blackberrys/crackberrys/iPhones/PDAs in general: a computer on your belt or in your purse that is way more powerful than the computer you used to have on your desk, and it's a phone and it's connected to the web too!


• Kindle: still on the upswing, but do you remember where you were when Gutenberg invented the printing press? (don't worry, it was 1439). You'll tell your grandkids about seeing the first e-book. Yes, it's that big.


• USB flash drives: flash memory in general is an absolutely revolutionary tool, as it allows us to record visual images (photos, video) on tiny devices that can go anywhere and record anything (which can then be uploaded on the worldwide communications platform we call The Internet). It also allows us to carry up to 300GB of data in our back pocket and hand it (say, nuclear secrets) to anyone we want.


• HDTV: 50 years after the commercialization of TV, the next step in picture quality, opening up all sorts of possibilities, but mostly, allowing men to watch football on giant screens.

Huffpo's list is mainly "gadgets," in other words tech hardware with some nifty software inside. What about things that were either sold or used only as software, on existing hardware? No diff really, but Huffpo skipped those, so here are a few I'd add:

• Google: came out in 98-99, but it didn't gain popularity until 2000. Changed web search from a frustrating and incomplete exercise into an extension of our brains and thoughts.


• Facebook: changed online personas from sock puppets/imaginary selves to real people knitting their lives together.


• Twitter: it's the first wave of the 'real time web' where information is shared almost as soon as it is created


• Blogging/content management systems: Took the creation of web content away from computer professionals and put it in the hands of everyone.


• Wikipedia: the open documentation and organization of all the world's information


• YouTube: the first major step toward moving TV/video content onto the web. Trust me, by the end of the next decade, you won't use a satellite dish or cable or rabbit ears to get TV content. It will all come over the Internet.


• Skype: buh bye, copper phone lines. Hullo, cheap voice and video phone calls over the web.


• BitTorrent: An amazingly simple way to share huge files containing entertainment (movies, concerts) over the net. I can now download a three hour, 1GB Springsteen show in about 15 minutes. At the beginning of the decade I was trading audio tapes by mail with people. How easy will it be in another decade?

Death of E&P is a milestone worth noting

Neilsen announced yesterday that it was shuttering Editor & Publisher, the iconic newspaper industry trade magazine that has chronicled the newspaper business for 108 years.

I'd been wondering about the relevance of E&P in past months, so after getting over the initial shock, this decision comes as no surprise. E&P played an essential role in the newspaper industry in the pre-computer and pre-Internet days, but those days are gone forever. And like most of the media is covered, E&P had no real clue how to change with the times. Organizations like Media Bistro simply ate their lunch.

i just wanted to take a moment to note the passing of this trade magazine. It certainly signals the end of an era, amid the continuing death watch for major American newspapers.

"Who Will Pay the Messenger" Is Indeed the Question

I am not a believer that print media is all but dead. But I am a believer that the highest profile print media, namely big city newspapers, are, in fact, all but dead (with one notable exception, the New York Times).

This is not, as many assume, simply because the Internet came along and took away a lot of the advertising base, although that certainly has hastened their demise. It is, in my view, because the managers and journalists who run the nation's big city newspapers got fat, lazy and complacent, well before the popularization of the Internet. They have only now really and truly woken up from this slumber, and it is probably way too late. Sorry guys.

The fact is that, even today, virtually all of the journalism on big city media web sites is subsidized, one way or the other, by the print side of the house. Even if the print side is losing money, it is still employing high-paid veteran journalists, whose articles are then posted on the paper's web site. There, despite robust online traffic, those articles won't generate nearly enough revenue to pay the salary of said journalists.

At some point, this model will become unsustainable, and those veteran journalist jobs will be gone. They will either not be replaced or they will be replaced by much, much cheaper labor.

I took the title of this post from an august conference at Yale Law School a few weeks back called "Journalism and the New Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messenger?" As the rest of the title of my post says, that is indeed the question.

I would have liked to attend the conference, but I only learned of it today, and besides, I don't fly across the country for such things, unfortunately. But in a semi-ironic twist, I may very well wind up watching some of the proceedings from the comfort of my home or office, because they have posted video of the panels.

Two main forms of advertising supported the newspapers we know today: display ads from regional retailers, and classified ads, largely from auto dealerships and employers. These forms of advertising skyrocketed after the Second World War, as new and expanded metropolitan areas developed.

Guess what happened next: the world changed. The metro areas got developed, and the Internet came along. Both types of advertisers no longer needed the traditional regional newspaper to spread their message, and so they largely stopped advertising in them.

It was those revenues that supported the newspaper journalism we know today. And now they are gone, and they ain't never comin' back.

That doesn't mean the practice of journalism goes away. But the cash cow that underwrote it has run out of milk. And for the most part, the managers and journalists who run big city newspapers are still flatfooted. It was probably never likely that they would lead the next revolution, but it's always hard to watch people struggling with their economic mortality.

I'm going to end this stemwinder with a few thoughts about how the messenger might get paid:

• The non-profit model: There's no reason why a non-profit can't be the publisher of a newspaper. It is in this case (the St. Pete Times), and has been for years.


• Non-profit, part 2: Free-standing non-profits, such as Pro Publica, can also raise money, pay journalists and distribute their stories.


• Cheaper labor: pipe the City Council meeting to India. Have a writer there watch it and write the story. Fire or reassign the rumpled reporter who used to sit there to do more in-depth pieces.


• Change the advertising-to-content mix: It's amazing how much stuff publishers are posting on the net, with so little advertising around it. Spread the content a lot thinner, and get more ads.

What did you do with your summer?

In a sign of things surely to come, a 29-year-old writer has just landed a sitcom deal with CBS to make a show out of his Twitter feed, ShitMyDadSays.

This is not April Fools, and this is not a joke. The Tweeter in question, Justin Halpern, had already signed a book deal with HarperCollins. He's got more than 700,000 followers for a Twitter feed he only started in August.

BTW, what did you do with your summer?

Here are a couple of gems from what is, absolutely, a very fun guy and his son:

• "Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."


• "I hate paying bills... Son, don't say "me too." I didn't say that looking to relate to you. I said it instead of "go away."


• The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain't like he knows the cure for cancer and he just ain't spitting it out."


• "Just pay the parking ticket. Don't be so outraged. You're not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You double parked."

How this turns into a PG-rated CBS sitcom is a good question. "Stuff My Dad Says" isn't likely to be half as funny, and "funny stuff that happens in my family" has been done, and done, and done, starting with "I Love Lucy" in the 1950s.

Of course, in today's world, getting the deal, getting to make a pilot and even just getting to make a few bad episodes before being cancelled is an excellent way to a) make a living and b) leapfrog onto other projects.

Per my opening line: this IS a sign of the present and future. Life has moved online (duh) and mainstream, mass market communicators are finally taking notice. Look for more such crossovers on a TV, in a book, or on a movie screen near you.

Cosmetics Gravy Train Stops for Beauty Blogger, and She Blames PR

Here's an interesting post from the other side of the PR/blogger divide: it's a well written, well reasoned post by a beauty blogger about her experience dealing with PR for cosmetics and other personal care products.

After starting her blog in 2007, she says she was besieged with free product -- full-size samples of everything she could possibly want. She describes being fairly journalistic about methodically trying the products and reviewing them. But more came in than she could handle and she gave a lot of it away to her friends and readers.

Then, the recession hit, and the companies a) got chintzy with the samples and b) wanted more out of sending a sample than the possibility of a post -- they wanted guaranteed good coverage.

It's a good post and worth reading for a firsthand account of how the other half lives. My value-add will be the PR perspective:

There are effectively no barriers to entry in blogging -- anyone can be a waitress one day and "fashion and beauty blogger" the next (or both at the same time).

Pre-Internet, the barriers to being a recognized and influential writer were fairly high, which made it possible for PR to figure out who to deal with and what they were getting out of the arrangement.

Now, since anyone and everyone can position themselves as "influential," PR has a lot more trouble to deal with. Accept anyone's claim to legitimacy and you end up giving away your products, or set up barriers and get blowback like this.

The difference between the mainstream media and online media keeps getting smaller

Everyone knows that the mainstream media and the online media are two very different beasts, at least in their roots and points of view. But as we get further into the Internet revolution and the weakening of the business models of the mainstream media, the lines are really starting to blur.

I ran across an example of this that I wanted to share: TechCrunch's regular contributions to the WashingtonPost.com site. TechCrunch is one of the top online technology media outlets. It was founded by a non-media guy who has always proudly proclaimed his independent point of view. The Post, as you know, is one of the pillars of mainstream media.

But for the last several months, the Post has been running  articles from TechCrunch on its web site [I don't know if they are in the print version too]. These are in-depth pieces that definitely provide some heft to the Post's technology coverage.

Anyway, the point of this post was just to note the continued blurring of the lines. This is not, I might add, cause for despair or hand-wringing -- quite the opposite. Remember, if you get a hit on TechCrunch, it might make the Post too -- a twofer! In any case, it's just a matter of noting an evolution of the media and adapting to it.

In the end, it's all corporate communications

One of the reasons I became disillusioned and left the mainstream media was that while it purports to be "independent" and "objective," it's really just corporate communications. That is, the media of today is largely owned by massive corporations who want to make money, and they do so by researching and reporting "news" and delivering it in an attractive enough package that people will buy/watch/listen to it.

Now that I'm older, wiser, and jaded, this seems like, duh, but back in my younger days, this really seemed like an issue to me. It was certainly evident that we journalists were largely steered to cover "acceptable" stories -- city hall scandals, urban violence -- while understanding that other stories -- such as corporate control of the country, for instance -- would not be career-building subjects.

So I left the media, did a half-dozen years of community service type work, then trended over to real corporate communications, figuring -- seriously -- that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Just so you know, I don't always sleep well with this deal with the devil, but mostly, I've found a way to make a living while doing relatively benign "corporate communications."

Today's sermonette is prompted by the item in the Times today about the Los Angeles Kings hockey team hiring "their own reporter" to write stories about the team on the Kings' web site. The story assures us that "reporter" is being given "complete autonomy to post reporting or commentary."

However, the story goes on to fret: "how sure can readers be of tough, impartial coverage when image-conscious businesses are paying for it?"

As if the Gray Lady herself, the Times, isn't image conscious.

First of all, this story isn't news -- Major League Baseball has had the same set up for its teams for several years. Secondly, it's a damn good idea in today's world. It's a world of instant publishing on a global communications platform. Why wouldn't you post your own fresh content?

And this brings us to "credibility." Every media outlet has a point of view -- you just have to figure it out and deal with it, whether you are a media consumer or a PR person. So this is just one more example of a type of media to deal with. Like I said, it's all just corporate communications.

Great insights into New York Times blogging

MyRagan.com has a great article  by Paul Boutin, a Times freelancer and VentureBeat.com writer, about the nuts and bolts of blogging for the New York Times. It's free today but may go behind Ragan's paid sub firewall soon so check it out while you can.

Inside peek: How The New York Times handles its blogs

Excerpt:

In many ways, the Times’ blogs are no different from anyone else’s. But there’s one organizational trick they employ very effectively: Division of Labor. Times bloggers don’t work on their own. They don’t handle every aspect of their blogs. Who does what is divided up to bring specific expertise to bear on different parts of each post. The result is I can crank out more posts, and those posts are better overall, than if we writers did everything ourselves. I know, not everyone wants to have other people involved in their blogging. But there’s a reason people work in teams.

Rachel Maddow Deftly Injects Anti-Racism Into the National Mainstream

Racism has been one of the greatest stains on the American experiment and remains an insidious and destructive force in today's society. The election of Barack Obama has done two things: 1) it has shown that a majority of the electorate is now ready and willing to trust a non-white as the nation's President and 2) energized a vocal minority of Americans who still seek a white-dominated American society.

In the mainstream, there's probably no more "prominent" spokesman for white supremacy than Pat Buchanan. I put prominent in quotes because the man is self-appointed, having never won election to anything.

In a recent appearance on the Rachel Maddow show, where he is a regular contributor, Buchanan once again spouted his white supremacy, non-white inferiority line of "reasoning" during a discussion of Sonya Sotomayor, and as usual, played fast and loose with the facts. While Maddow let him get away with it during the original segment, she took him to task in a follow-up segment, and in the process, gave the most eloquent and forceful endorsement of anti-racism I've ever heard on national TV.

This is a big subject, but let me summarize, because this is important to me:

• White supremacy means a world dominated by people who pass as white, and seeing the world through the lens of white peoples' experiences and standards


• There's a world of non-white people out there, and they have been systematically discriminated against by white people (don't believe me -- read some of these links)


• People like Pat Buchanan are completely bought into defending white supremacy and white privilege


• There is very little in the mainstream media as yet about combating racism and white supremacy, but I'm happy to say that in my personal/religious life, I'm deep at work on it.

I can't do Maddow's takedown justice by quoting her. You just have to watch it for yourself.

BTW, the relevance to PR: This country will be majority non-white in my children's lifetime. If your comms aren't changing to reflect this reality, you're falling behind.

Pitching Business Media Is Getting Tougher and Tougher

One of the untold stories of PR over the last quarter century has been the great rise in business journalism, from a media backwater to a front-and-center element of the media. It just so happens that I had a front-row seat for this transformation, as I entered business journalism in 1981 as part of the first wave of expansion. Back then, for perspective, the Wall Street Journal was only one section, and the New York Times' business section was behind the sports section. There was no CNBC.

This has been a boon for PR -- the more business media, the more PR people and resources needed to deal with them and pitch them.

It has never been easy to get coverage from the business media, but this year, it has gotten much tougher. Buyouts and closures are sweeping the media, taking out scores of talented and experienced business journalists.

Talking Biz News, a very good blog that follows the business media, reported today that 250 business media jobs were eliminated just during the first six months of 2009. That included the entire staff of Portfolio, the ill-timed new business mag from Conde Nast, and 100 positions throughout Bloomberg Media, which is heavily dependent on sales of its information to the financial services sector. But there have been scores of other jobs lost at national newspapers, regionals, magazines and business journals.

What does this mean for us in PR? It means we have to work ever harder to get stories placed. It means we can't waste precious time pitching non-stories to over-worked journalists. It means that when we do pitch a story, we need to be ready to provide facts and figures, human interest, quotable quotes, photos, graphics and other sources for the story.

I know it's hard to do. But that's reality. So get back to work, people. Break's over.

Long Live New Media

With all the hand-wringing about the decline of metropolitan newspapers and other print media, you'd think that the traditional media was simply drying up and blowing away and leaving us in a media-free society. But that's hardly the case.

For one thing, traditional print and electronic media are far from dead and buried. They may be on the decline, but they're not gone yet and may still survive in some viable form or another.

For another, new media models are popping up all over the place, and while none has been a stratospheric business success yet, they are surviving and growing and figuring out how to make money.

As a media relations pro (and I assume you are), you need to stay on top of the media's evolution and be able to talk and think knowledgeably about it. So, here's a link to a Neiman Journalism Lab article called "Five newsrooms H.L. Mencken wouldn't recognize."

It's a behind-the-scenes tour of the news operations of Talking Points Memo, Gawker Media, Daily Telegraph, Valley Independent Sentinel and the Seattle Spokesman-Review.

BTW, who was H.L. Mencken? Good question -- here's your answer.

And while we're on the subject of media evolution, here's an interview with the newly named "social media editor" of the NY Times, Jennifer Preston.