The word newspaper is really a misnomer today. Or at least it will be soon. Increasingly news is delivered digitally and it's interactive. People are certainly writing newspapers off for dead, but I think they have a bright future (in digital form) and it's right in front of them.
Everyone's looking for a solution to the newspaper problem. But the answer is right under their nose. The picture is slowly evolving through the breakthrough work of individual reporters who are using social media to build a stronger connection with their audience (and their own personal brands in the process).
There are tons of examples. Dwight Silverman is one. But here's another that's also near and dear to my heart. It's so spot on that it's noteworthy as an example of where the news business is heading - or where it needs to go.
In the US baseball spring training is getting underway in full swing in Florida and Arizona. I am a Yankee fan and have been paying close attention to what Peter Abraham has been doing. He should win awards for breaking ground in sports journalism.
Abraham is the Yankees beat writer for the Journal News in Westchester county (a NYC suburb). According to Burrelles Luce, it's the 94th largest newspaper in the US with a daily circ of 100,000 readers.
Abraham is on the scene in Tampa where the Yankees are training and he's doing it all - in addition to filing regular reports for the paper that appear in print. Here's an inventory of his social media footprint....
First, he has a blog with a full-text feed that includes several posts/day and hundreds of comments/day from readers. It dates back to 2006.
In addition, Abraham has a Facebook group that has about 1600 members.
He is posting photos from spring training using his iPhone. Note the gear the others are using by comparison.
There is a podcast up on iTunes that right now is updated daily with audio.
FInally, today he was using both CoverItLive and Mogulus to have a live video/text chat with readers.
All Abraham is missing is Twitter, YouTube and maybe Flickr but he seems to be doing just fine with what he has here.
Now imagine for a moment that Abraham wasn't a Yankees beat writer but instead covering your company or industry for the business section. Or imagine she is the newspaper's food columnist. This multi-platform method of engaging is right for all of them. If every reporter did this on staff they can build not only a more engaged audience, but also redefine local media since it's all potentially global.
For PR professionals, this is a boon. More content creates more opportunities for us to tell our stories and to also engage journalists using these same channels. If we're not there as individuals and companies then we won't be top of mind.
What Abraham is doing represents not only the future of journalism but also what PR professionals themselves need to do to build connections in the years ahead.
