As we all know, we PR professionals compete against each other on behalf of our clients, vying for audience eyeballs and attention from our friends in the media. In the downsizing traditional media environment (declining advertising revenue/news holes/news staffs/news outlets), one area where we can gain an edge on our competition is through developing new media contacts. And by that I mean both developing new contacts in the media, and developing contacts in the new media.

I think all of us know a colleague or two in PR circles who aren’t exactly known for their ability to hustle. These colleagues are going to have a difficult time keeping up with media staff turnover in markets where newspapers and other publications are closing, and radio and TV stations are downsizing.

For the rest of us, it’s another opportunity--not only to have more up-to-date and comprehensive media contacts than the competition, but also to build better media relationships. We will know the post-downsizing, re-organized media outlets better and the new media startups better. And we will also know the individuals at these organizations better, along with a superior understanding of their news coverage and story production needs.

It will be tough for reporters and editors to adapt to the new environment.  Whether they stay on in consolidated newsrooms at traditional newspapers or join new Web-based news organizations, news staffers will undoubtedly have to do more with less. Anything we as PR professionals can do to make their jobs easier helps to build these relationships. As with any relationship, you should try to add more than you are taking away. One example: Suggest stories and sources that you know they will value, even when you’re not pitching on behalf of a client. Your good deeds today will pay off in the future.

The ongoing saga over whether AIG executives should be forced to give up their bonuses raises an interesting PR angle. One lesson: Any company that partakes in a direct government bailout, or even participates in a government-sponsored economic program without direct assistance, should take special care to manage public perceptions.

As AIG executives learned quickly, nothing is certain when you are beholden to government administrators and members of Congress, especially in this economic environment. And AIG should have known—because, after all, good PR is a two-way street—that the bonuses would be viewed as outrageous by Joe Taxpayer.

Before private investment firms decide whether to bid on so-called toxic assets through the government-guaranteed loan program announced this week, those firms will undoubtedly seek PR advice on how they will be perceived by the public. If they will be viewed as potential saviors of the economy, that may help tip the balance in favor of participating. And if they expect that the public would see them as corporate welfare recipients, it may be enough to kill their interest.

Proactive public relations, of course, would help mold and manage the public perception of the company considering doing business with the government, before any crisis could develop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/business/media/24paper.html?_r=1&hpw

Daily newspapers are going the way of the horse and buggy for many cities, and the New York Times recently reported yet another example.

In Michigan, the Flint, Saginaw and Bay City papers are cutting back their circulation to only three days a week, while the Ann Arbor newspaper will switch to twice a week. Gannett newspapers recently announced its second mandatory weeklong unpaid furlough of 2009 for its employees, while Newhouse-family-owned papers are also implementing mandatory unpaid leave, for two weeks.

Yes, PR professionals will continue to serve their clients, with or without daily papers, and we will find no shortage of public relations opportunities in the changing media landscape. But it still is a sad time as we watch friends that we’ve worked with for years in newspapers, magazines and even local TV suffer through layoffs and reorganizations. Many of us worked in the media before taking up the PR profession, and we are seeing former co-workers lose their jobs, with new cutback announcements coming out nearly every day.

One issue to keep an eye out for as the traditional media industry downsizes: the PR job market will be flooded with resumes, as more media types look to make the shift into public relations as their new career path.