The Crisis Management Memo

Did mainstream news shoot itself in the foot?

As America’s newspapers and a growing number of local TV stations find themselves falling on hard times these days, the country’s depressing economy is not being singled out as the only – and possibly not even the primary – culprit. More and more, the internet is being blamed.

Recent surveys indicate the internet has increased beyond the once-thought “threat” to newspaper readership.A Pew study showed more people today get their news off the internet than from newspapers and magazines combined. Can television be far behind?

But what are people getting when they get their news from the internet? Some would say it is full of opinionated, unprofessional rantings from bloggers and others. Where is the real journalism? The journalism that made newspapers thrive and gave us hard-hitting shows like 60 Minutes and World News Tonight.

But wait a minute, what are we getting from other media sources today? What about the “mainstream” media? What about cable television, for instance?

When you have people like CNBC’s Jim Cramer shouting around and prancing on his Mad Money television show, is it any wonder someone like Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart appears to be more credible as a newsman than Cramer? Which do you want, funny, or angry?

Is it any wonder why more and more people consider The Daily Show a legitimate news show? What does that say about the “mainstream” media?

Somewhere in the not so distant past, a lot of the “legitimate” news media seem to have crossed the line from newsgathers to entertainers. As for objective journalism, look at the credentials of some of the leading talk show hosts. Many of the top-ranked ones are former politicians interviewing current politicians. What about the highly-opinionated Lou Dobbs or radio’s conservative czar, Rush Limbaugh? Are they journalists, or are they entertainers? The line is getting blurry.

At least Jon Stewart doesn’t try to take himself seriously, even if others do.

The point is that there is an increasing gray area between the “news” on the internet and the news we obtain from what we thought were possibly more legitimate sources. As cable news programs depend on civilian iReporters to report the news and newspapers slash professional reporting staffs, the internet has to be taken as a serious provider of news today. For one thing, a growing number of people read newspapers and watch television online than that old-fashioned, conventional way. The internet is where it’s at.

So how does this all fit into a blog on crisis management, you might ask?

Well, there was a time not so long ago when the internet may have been considered an after-thought when trying to get your message out in a crisis. There are some who still refer to the internet as “new media.” I think it’s gone beyond that. It’s here. It’s serious. And, like Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, you can’t ignore it. You have to deal with it.

If that means working the internet or going on The Daily Show, so be it. Just remember that no matter whether you're dealing with mainstream media, the new media or whatever the next generation of media might be, you had better be prepared for it.

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