Online Public Relations Thoughts

This is wise advice to the news industry. The writer suggests that traditional media stop identifying themselves by the medium in which they are working and to look at what they are -- news generation and delivery companies. They may use any or all media to develop and report stories. This means, of course, that today's news companies have to develop skill sets in both traditional and new media. They are, in fact, doing that. Reporters at The Wall Street Journal, for example, have become on-air personalities at CNBC and in-house at the Journal's own TV studio. They are writing blogs and producing podcasts. They are posting stories first on the Journal's web site rather than waiting for the next morning's paper.

But, the Journal still calls itself a newspaper. It is time to stop doing that. It is a news publishing company. How it delivers news is a matter of reader or viewer preference.