Should We Go Back to Print?

The lights went out, but the Kobo Glo saved the day.  

This is likely the billionth time someone has written the words "the internet has changed -- everything." And it's true. Particularly for journalism and public relations. Social media is immediate and consumer-driven. From sharing a funny family photo, to complaining about bad customer service, to witticisms, and breaking news, it's all out there. All the time!

The lightning pace at which PR-pros work to create timely responses to almost everything is both exhausting and exhilarating. Take the time when the lights went out at the Super Bowl last year. Thank goodness Kobo's execs had the trusty Kobo Glo on hand - you couldn't plan for a golden moment to respond to such a situation.

Every PR person waits for these moments. The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics were no exception with every brand looking for ways to capitalize on the rich media landscape and the whole world watching.

For me, Jimmy Kimmel's wolf prank stands out as something we should really pay attention to. Not because it was funny, which it was. Not because it got the whole world talking, it did. And not because he pointed out that consumers shouldn't always believe what they hear - which we all know to be true. The prank - where Kimmel collaborated with Kate Hansen to create a video of a wolf in her dorms in Sochi (a real wolf, but a recreated dorm at Kimmel's studio) - pointed out something that many journalists and PR pros have been struggling with for a while now. The credibility of media. In a world where social media moves almost instantaneously, where your neighbour is a blogger discussing any topic they choose, the question of truth becomes much harder to answer.

If this prank pointed out anything, it's that trusted, reliable, accurate and vetted media is more important than ever before. There's value in investigative journalism, there's value in editors examining articles to ensure they're accurate, there's value in sources contributing to a thesis, and there's value in all of those people being experts in their field. I'm not saying social media doesn't have its place - it absolutely does - but when we think about where we get our information, now more than ever we need to have confidence in the profession of journalism. It's worth paying for. It's worth protecting. It's worth knowing what's true.

What are your thoughts on how to protect the virtues of journalism in the age of the internet?