Blogs Shrink CBS News Cycle

CBS News blog, Public Eye, recently discussed the shrinking news cycle that network news programs face:

The news cycle is shorter than it's ever been. If news happens at noon, savvy news consumers often know about it by 12:01. By 6:30, they've already absorbed news analysis, talking head debates, and endless reports about the event.

Part of this challenge comes from the blogosphere which presents public relations professionals with the opposite challenge.

Blogs continue to fragment the media landscape, creating more opportunities for placement. This also increases public relations' responsibility for media relations efforts that are equal parts art and science. This means creative execution of a strategic plan instead of mass pitching with even more phone follow-up by entry-level hires or interns (an ex-colleague of mine deftly calls this "dialing for dollars").

As this illustration from a Morgan Stanley white paper shows, blogs and other social media expand the news cycle for public relations professionals.

What are you doing to address this shift in the media landscape? Some in our industry may ignore the blogosphere to avoid the risks, but they also miss out on the rewards or opportunities it can hold.

UPDATE: Micropersuasion brings us a great example of how blogs are expanding the news cycle. Intelliseek is scheduled to announce a content deal with AOL on Monday. They leaked it to Steve Rubel the Friday before and the blogosphere now has the whole weekend to chat about it. If this announcement makes a big splash, the blogosphere will also cover the news and analyze it after the MSM move onto the next story. A smart move by Intelliseek where everyone wins.

In the above visual, the dark blue shaded areas to the left and right of the bell curve are the sections of the news cycle where blogs are really expanding things. That was not initially made clear.

tags: public relations, media relations, CBS, blog, news, PR, consumer-generated media, steve rubel, intelliseek, AOL

Comments

[CPBJ]

It is a nice article on Public Relation.