Everyone knows that the world is heavily invested in the Internet.  We shop there, check the weather, our stocks, and find our way to our next meeting via MapQuest.  And, of course, we look at the news online to keep abreast of current events.  The Internet is so much apart of our lives that's it's hard to imagine life without it.

Still, many clients still look to the print media as the holy grail.  Getting into the print edition of The Wall Street Journal or BusinessWeek is seen by many of our clients as more prestigious than their online counterparts.  However, the convergence of print and online will become increasingly blurred as stories will reside more frequently on the Internet, and the prestige will be afforded to the story with the widest reach -- and that's going to be via the Web.  This will become a reality as print pages continue to dwindle, due to shrinking ad pages which have traditionally supported the amount of space alloted to editorial coverage.  These ads are not going away entirely, though.  They are going to reside online and in turn, news organizations will fuel their online vehicles and increasingly direct their readers to the Web.

What does this mean for you, our clients?  It means that most of the news stories you read will be in an online publication.  This will have tremendous implications for our ability to help you tell your story.  With an online platform, journalists will be mandated to develop a "full story" - complete with B-roll, scripted video and high resolution pictures. The adage, "a picture tells a thousand words", will never be more true than on the Web. As your public relations partners, we will be at the ready to help you craft those stories.  In fact, may stories will not even see the light of day if they do not include pictures and video.  They will be passed over entirely or be relegated to small news briefs.  We'll want to empower you to develop stories that depict your messages most powerfully, and that means providing reporters with a range of visuals.

The convergence is here and it is now.  You will see the trend taking shape before your eyes.  My advice:  be prepared.  Let's start now by building your visual library and developing the brand imagery that will build your brand and make it newsworthy.  

Carin Warner
President
Warner Communications