Just this morning, the Ann Arbor News, which has served one of Michigan’s most vibrant communities for 174 years, announced its plans to close in just a few months. In its place, a new Web site will launch, AnnArbor.com, that plans to cover news and include “social networking.” See the details here.
Last year, we told you about this trend – newspapers and magazines going away and replaced by “online only” outlets. Today, we are much closer to the beginning of this trend than we are to the end. It will be happening more and more often and certainly not just in Michigan.
What does this mean for you, if you work in PR or wear some sort of PR hat? Just another reason to stop clinging to the ways of doing business you learned throughout your career. It’s time for you to change too. As news content – and business – moves on-line to stay, so should yours. The potential third-party credibility of these Web sites may end up being close to what newspapers once enjoyed. But, that’s no sure thing. Think about the communications channels that you control – that are open to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection who throws out a few search terms. That is the way we, as consumers of information, want it. That is a trend in full-swing.