Traditional picture is that news organisations filter news and distribute to consumers in a fairly one way relationship,through print, radio, tvIn the last two decades also online news sites, whose success combined with lack of sustainable business models have been affecting the solidity of many editorial businesses. Recently also distributing in new digital formats formats for mobile and tablets (the jury is still out on whether these will provide significant potential to develop new business models, although the jury is still out, but the enthusiasm has probably declined in the last year)As long as editorial media controlled the news, anyone who had a message in this world needed to convince the guardians of editorial channels (or pay for advertising in them) But editorial control is increasingly challenged: First, the internet has massively increased competition between editorial providers for the attention of news consumers
Second, and more importantly, news consumers now have easy access to news and information from non-editorial providers, through an array of online channels and tools Social media (including search) have for many news consumers shown themselves as an effective and highly popular alternative news filtering method to traditional editorial packagingWhilst editorial media remain important primary news sources, and are also the most frequently referenced in social media, anyone now has a virtual printing press and increasingly efficient ways to distribute their message direct to their public. This is happening whether we who own editorial media like it or not, so rather than seeing it as a threat, we have joined the game: Through MyNewsdesk we are complementing our editorial news coverage by providing an infrastructure for companies to effectively spread their messages to their stakeholders.
Editorial media interact with, rather than ignore the activity in direct media channels:Adding analysis, checking accuracy and asking critical questions to storiesContinuing to dig out the news stories that are not posted voluntarily and no-one is writing a press release about. Editorial organisations also use social media to engage in two-way communication with the readers, and as a way to originate, test the impact of and prolong the life of new stories
