Seat at the Table

A small headline in the New York Times, YouTube.com Video Prompts Probe of LAPD‘, is a perfect example of how the new news delivery mechanisms often both amplify and overshadow the news they delivery. In other words, delivering news through new mechanisms can amplify the reception as people more people focus on the content, but are still distracted by the way it was delivered. In this case, I probably wouldn’t have read the LAPD article, but I was curious as to how YouTube played a part.

This is nothing new to public relations professionals.  The industry has used stunts to deliver news for decades.  By making the stunt itself newsworthy, the core message received more pickup though much of the coverage may focus first on the stunt and then on the news.   These days, being one of the first to send news over a new media – an earnings PPT over Slideshare.net, agency.com pitching Subway through YouTube, corporate blog etc – might take a noteworthy piece of news and make it a headline-worthy piece of news (though a headline that shares space with the delivery mechanism).

Of course, this also has serious consequences for crisis management where a serious but not headline-worthy situation is amplified because it is broadcast over new media (YouTube + an LAPD video = national New York Times headline).

Even in a crisis situation the medium amplifying the message can go both ways.  GM got high marks for posting its email exchange with the New York Times after the newspaper refused to print a rebuttal.  While this exchange was itself newsworthy, the fact that GM responded aggressively through a blog resulted it in getting more attention.

In the end, the rules for communications strategy are the same.  Pick the most appropriate media for the audience and understand both how they view the media, and how the media itself affects delivery of the message.  We just have more choices than ever, and the expansion of media choices shows no sign of slowing down.