More ABCs

A small step in my London PR career. Jim Bilton used half a line of the press release I sent him on CITY A.M. and the ABCs in his article in today’s Media Guardian. So that’s my first hit in a national then. Lord Bell will be quacking in his boots!! Joking apart, the important thing here is that it gives me some ready made analysis to refer to when thinking about the relative strength of the national media vis-à-vis politics.

What would be really useful would be to see some audited figures for use of national newspapers’ websites. I think politicians will be relishing the fragmentation of media and the decline of printed newspapers. But as far as I can see there's no way that people’s thirst for news is diminishing. So, are newspaper readers staying loyal to the titles they’ve always read but choosing not to buy the paper version? In fact, they’re probably reading a greater variety of news sources.

So, to get back to the question of how new media is influencing the relationship between media and politics, it seems to me that those media outlets that have the best online strategy will continue to succeed (once they work out how to make real money from the internet). Will the relationship change? Or will it just be the format?

The internet will always give politics a direct route to the public and this inevitably affects the relationship but in the end media brands still retain loyalty and people will still refer to them for a steer on what really lies behind what the politicians are saying.

Rather than getting better for the politicians, the arrival of online media with its immediacy could make things worse but I'll go in to that tomorrow as if I spend much longer at the computer i'll be in trouble (and rightly so!)