Making News in the Digital Era

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Introduction.....................................................................ixChapter One: Everything Is Upside Down...........................................3Chapter Two: Bright Stars and Clear Voices.......................................10Chapter Three: Leadership in the Digital Revolution..............................18Chapter Four: Creating Symbolic Images...........................................28Chapter Five: Take Charge of Your Own Success....................................30Chapter Six: Road Map of the New Online World....................................36Chapter Seven: Twitter Dispatches in 140 Characters..............................43Chapter Eight: Find Something That Works.........................................51Chapter Nine: Blogging Has Come a Long Way.......................................59Chapter Ten: Untangling Online Strategies and Web 2.0............................68Chapter Eleven: Each of Us Has a Voice...........................................75Chapter Twelve: Communications with Impact.......................................79Chapter Thirteen: Crisis Never Takes a Day Off...................................82Chapter Fourteen: Working in the World's Spotlight...............................85Chapter Fifteen: Awareness That Saves Lives......................................93Chapter Sixteen: A Good Story Has Great Legs.....................................103Chapter Seventeen: Perception Is Just Reality's Mirror Image.....................109Chapter Eighteen: Plain Language Is Sexy.........................................112Chapter Nineteen: Die, Press Releases!...........................................117Chapter Twenty: Nothing Is Secret, or "No Comment"...............................122Chapter Twenty-One: Strategic Planning While You Wait............................128Chapter Twenty-Two: Mission Statements Are Useless...............................134Chapter Twenty-Three: The Price of a Forgettable Slogan..........................141Chapter Twenty-Four: A Handshake Rather Than E-Mail..............................147Chapter Twenty-Five: Be Clever and Bold..........................................152Chapter Twenty-Six: Ready for 15 Minutes.........................................158Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Camera Never Blinks....................................163Chapter Twenty-Eight: Core Values and Clear Vision...............................166

Chapter One

We are inundated today by marketing and promotional message clutter, which is driven by fierce competition among businesses, organizations and individuals with agendas - all vying for attention. In this digital age, it seems as if we are in a world of high-intensity information overload. We attempt to tune out much of the noise, yet many of us remain captivated by the clever, credible and original.

The online environment is new for many organizations desiring to create attention and have their messages heard. Resisting or rejecting contemporary ideas for communications means risking being lost in the shadows and dust. It is a time when better techniques are needed to boost awareness and reach objectives.

The challenge is how to successfully achieve meaningful results through effectively and credibly connecting with audiences and, in particular, the media, both mainstream and online. The goals for a business or organization may include growth, enhanced image and reputation before key audiences, increased financial security and being recognized as a leader.

We are living in the online era, a fact that cannot be avoided. There are approximately 199.2 million Internet users in the United States, according to eMarketer. Two out of every three people in the country are actively online.

Organizations can no longer afford to cling to old-school tactics and hope to succeed. It is a new era, in when reaching objectives and success is equated to management of prominent awareness, engagement with audiences and effective competitive differentiation.

It has become a bewildering world, filled with noise, clutter and change, especially in how we communicate and how we scramble to get the attention of the media. The methods of our conversations are evolving; the style of discourse is changing. How we get our news, are informed and share information is changing as well. Even those we have conversations with have changed, as we sometimes share with and learn from people we may never meet in person.

In our own organizations, we want to be clear, decisive and efficient leaders, managers and communicators. But then things get complicated. We know what we want to say, and we want to act quickly, but since many people need to be involved in the approval process, we have numerous meetings to make sure we have covered everything. And time passes even as the rest of the world races by. Many of our efforts to communicate are held back by rigid internal processes and politics, as well as inflexible old habits.

In the media, an entire industry that clung too long to old business models and old habits is changing and dying before our eyes. The newspaper business as it has traditionally been known is crumbling as advertising dollars and readers have swarmed to the efficiency and instant convenience of the Internet. The definitions of what is news and who is a journalist are swiftly being altered.

Every week, if not every day, we hear of more newspapers failing or struggling to stay alive. Newsrooms are cutting staffs, cutting sections, cutting pages. Some of the best newspeople in the business have lost their jobs. The industry has been trying to find a silver bullet, a new business model, to attract more readers and larger revenue streams online. It has not had much luck so far. The traditional American press is on suicide watch.

Frank Rich, a respected columnist at the New York Times, pulled no punches about the situation of traditional media when he observed in a May 10, 2009, Times column: "Newspaper circulations and revenues are in free fall ... [and] the reporting ranks on network and local [TV] news alike are shriveling."

Rich continued: "The causes of journalism's downfall - some self-inflicted, some beyond anyone's control (a worldwide economic meltdown) - are well known." He characterized it as "self-destructive retreat from innovation."

With the advent of new forms of media, made possible by the online digital revolution, we seemingly have infinite avenues to find news and information at our fingertips, and we can explore new ways of having our voices heard. We care less today about what someone is pushing at us and more about our own personal choices - a trend that has turned the whole world of marketing and advertising upside down.

The big advantage is that today we can do something about it. We all can be actively a part of the online discourse to have our voices, news and information heard and seen. It only takes learning the new ways to work in the digital era.

Just as we in the communications industry would no longer consider sending a news release to the media in the mail or via fax, for example, we must also question the relevance of even using such things as news releases and other more traditional communication tactics.

With downsizing of mainstream media, those journalists who still have jobs are under increased pressure to find new and clever...