"Meet the Media" but For How Long?

I attended a fun event this morning out in Tysons Corner. It was a "Meet the Media" event put on by the good people at BusinessWire. Today's event had a great panel of local, hard working, respected journalists:

• Bill Flook, Washington Business Journal
• Gautham Nagesh, The Hill
• Rob Pegoraro, The Washington Post
• Paul Sherman, Potomac Tech Wire
• Nick Wakeman, Washington Technology

I've attended a few of these events over the years- they are a good venue to see fellow marketers and communicators over danishes and coffee. However, they tend to be mostly the same with the same two messages...

PR people- I emailed you and no one responded- how do I get my press release picked up by your publication?

Press people- Stop spamming me and send me a great story how and when I need it, and, oh, be honest with me.

Given the decline in the media's business model (especially trade journalism) and the rise of social media, you would have thought that the issue of "how to pitch journalists" would have receded a bit in importance. But no. When I asked the panelists if they receive more or less pitches and whether those pitches were better or worse than before, every single one answered "more" and "worse." Not good.

It's especially noteworthy given that a B2B social media marketing campaign has as its core activity the creation (and distribution) of content to gain an audience (just like a media outlet). And now that corporations are hiring journalists to write and report on the industries they used to cover for trade mags, the relative decline of traditional journalism seems obvious. In a world where credible, valuable content is prized, no matter who created it, the PR world really needs to move past, "I emailed you and no one responded- how do I get my press release picked up by your publication?"

There was a very interesting webinar this morning organized by Washington Technology magazine and featuring Ray Bjorkland of FedSources.

Here is couple of tidbits I found interesting:

• there will be fewer government opportunities over the next few years but those that exist will be bigger
• it is increasingly important to get on an IDIQ contract or get on an existing team
• pure A-76 contracts will be rare, but mostly used for small scale staff augmentation deals
• the impact of the 2008 election will be minimal until the 2009 budget due to the length of the government budgeting cycle (well....duh)
• eGov initiatives seem to have broad based bi-partisan support and won't see much change over the next few years
• IPv6 is not a high risk change for government, but poses a huge managerial and cultural challenge. Will the government develop and implement a viable plan for all the ancillary changes that need to be addressed? Still up the in air.
• there a strong resurgence of interest and budgets in health IT. Electronic health records are driving budget growth as well as funds to directly support warfighter and veterans
• there will be increasing collaboration among government agencies, ie IWIN with DOJ/DHS. However, in the end, most contracts of this sort tend to get driven by one or another of the agencies involved.