Are we losing the mainstream media?

Last week, I got an email from Michael Harris, who reviews plays for The Globe and Mail here in Vancouver. It said:

I’m afraid I have some bad news… The Globe and Mail has cancelled its weekly Vancouver theatre listings, effective immediately. As I’m sure you’re aware, everyone in print media has had to make a great many cuts.

Today, we learned that The Globe and Mail cut 10% of its workforce.

It’s no secret that traditional print media has had to scramble in the wake of an explosion of online content. First off,  there are millions of bloggers out there, writing away about their passions or areas of expertise. Then, traditional sources of media, like newspapers, are increasingly going online–either repurposing their hard-copy stuff, or using the web to instantly report breaking news. We are becoming more and more attached to our computers. A phone book arrived on my doorstep this week, and when I went to replace last year’s version, found I hadn’t even unwrapped last year’s  yet. I get my phone numbers from Canada 411.

Hard-copy media is writing about the very phenomenon that is happening to them. Recently, Michael Mccarthy and Gillian Shaw wrote articles on Twitter for The Vancouver Courier and The Vancouver Sun. How did they do the research? Twitter.

According to Tris Hussey who recently published a post called “Smart Journalists Tweet While Newspapers Wrap Fish”:

They’ve (journalists) seen the handwriting on the wall, and they see that it’s adapt or become fish wrappers. The Vancouver Sun and Reuters aren’t the only news folks on Twitter of course. Almost all of our local news outlets are on Twitter and interacting with the community at large. What do we get? Headlines pushed to us. What do they get? News sources. Lots of news sources.

Times have changed. Information is exchanged electronically and faster than the events themselves (which does lead to inaccurate information at times), journalism and journalists have to change as well.

If  traditional journalists are changing the way they write stories, then so do we have to adapt. I get paid to pitch stories to journalists, and hopefully score previews and reviews for my clients. In these times of shrinking column space and but a booming internet explosion, I am finding myself connecting more with mainstream media online (or as many of them that are online), and pitching stories to non-traditional, internet-based writers like bloggers.

Embrace the revolution!!

Are we Losing the Mainstream Media Part 2