the elevator pitch

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Newspapers are Dying, Here’s How to Save Them

Published July 11th, 2008 in Innovations in PR | No Comments »

Arguably, no industry has been hit harder than the newspaper biz by the Internet revolution. The shift in how humans receive information has brought inky giants to their knees. For nearly two centuries newspapers held a monopoly on information but it disappeared in one decade thanks largely to Google and the reluctance by the leaders of big media to accept change.

Newspapers have been hammered by environmentalists, who claim the trees and chemicals used in the production process are detrimental to the planet. Journalists who spent four or more years getting an education to practice in their field have seen their audience migrate to blogs published by kids living in a basement. Copy editors have had to swallow the fact their clever headlines laden with puns are useless in an age when people find news by searching for exact terms. And Craigslist is stealing classified advertising, long considered the lifeblood of any print publication, and savvy business executives, including several Elevation PR clients, are publishing news about their own niche industries to drive search traffic to their sites.

So, how do grey ladies everywhere counteract all of that technological artillery?

Elevation’s editorial experts believe it’s time newspapers joined them; them being the people who’ve succeeded at turning online content into a money-making device. Many newspapers have tremendous online readership but no sure way to turn all those eyeballs into dollars.

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The Evolving Power of Blogs

Published May 18th, 2008 in Innovations in PR | 1 Comment »

In 1444, when Johann Gutenberg mastered his printing press, the world of business and literacy was transformed. Books made of paper and not expensive parchment became accessible to the masses. The dissemination of advertising content was made cheaper, allowing for farther reach by more members of the business class. Announcements and declarations, such as Martin Luther’s 99 Theses, became possible. The possibilities of publishing opened to people beyond just those in royalty or the clergy, spawning the first Information Age.

We are in the midst of another such revolution. The Internet has replaced Gutenberg’s printing press and the blog format has usurped newsprint. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can now be a publisher and can do so without spending any money.

Like with anything that possesses the capacity to change the world, the traditional powers are slow to adapt, allowing market share to be lost to first adopters. Through blogs, small- and mid-sized businesses have the opportunity to not only capture public attention, but to evolve into popular publishers themselves. That power allows them to build communities, steer messaging, spread their brand and increase profits. Large businesses have similar opportunities, as well as the power to balance reporting by mainstream news media through their own blogs.

“I can spend three hours talking about a topic, and the media will edit it to fit the three-minute segment or 500-word column. That’s far from the most efficient way to communicate. The blog changes all that,” says Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet, and a blogger since 2003.

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