Last week, The Patch laid off a majority of its local editors, bringing an end to great coverage of local events and community news that are dailies were just not covering. But AOL's venture was not making money and the new owners decided they wanted to go in a new direction.
Also last week, Ezra Klein left The Washington Post after pitching a new business idea, that Post was not interested in but Vox Media was. Days later, The Washington Post announced it was going to expand its newsroom and hire more reporters to cover the world of politics, more photo editors, data visualization specialists, news desk staff and web designers among others.
These moves, reinforce that the media industry remains in flux and until we have a better handle on how people like to get their news and how advertisers want to position their products, we will continue to see the media market evolve and try to reinvent itself, over and over again.
Like the media, the public relations industry must also continue to evolve to remain relevant. We need to stay on top of emerging trends, where reporters are moving too and how we can work to best position our client's in the media that matters to them. Perhaps that is working to bolster our client's on-line presence and treating our clients as a media company, directing traffic and attention to their site rather than constantly pitching new stories. However, it depends on our client's budget and how we can best work to promote the issues and products they want to position in the marketplace.