When machines take over

There's been a lot of discussion about the diminishing roles of newspapers and magazines. Let's not forget the journalist.

The latest is from Charles Cooper of CNet.

Charles points out how many PR people are bypassing news outlets to distribute news directly to the Web and news aggregators. Charles also noted that press releases sometimes rank higher on news aggregation pages (Techmeme, for example) than articles written by journalists. (Full post here.)

Here's an excerpt:

"The truth is that there are fewer and fewer of you guys," said a veteran PR-meister I know who works for one of the bigger technology companies. "You can't call the same reporter and expect him to do five stories on your company in the same month. So we have to have other ways to get out that information."

"Search engine optimization and other tools we have are better than they used to be and we're just taking advantage of the technology," this person continued. "We can go direct to audiences and bypass the filters--like the media--and have it picked up."

At some point journalists need to think hard about what their real role is. Companies bypassing journalists is not news. What's new is that users/readers seem to find value in the material. That's when you really need to rethink things.