At the Florida Public Relations Association's recent Counselors Network meeting in Sanibel, FL I had the pleasure of speaking to a small group of seasoned practitioners about working with social media. My afternoon session was an interesting extension of the morning session led by Joe Epley. Joe talked about some of the higher-level trends that are impacting pr. One of the sub-discussions was the changing media landscape. The themes were the standard talking points:

- Declining readership of newspapers
- The youth's lack of interest in news (except for The Daily Show)
- The emergence of blogs and other 'citizen's media'

Now let's balance these changes against some of the traditional roles of PR. One session attendee that works in healthcare was being directed by the 'corporate office' (read: not local) to increase their media outreach initiatives. This directive came just as the local paper has eliminated the health reporter's beat. How does one reach out to media that is not there? Change your definition of media of course.

When I started my session in the afternoon I said that we'd had a good discussion that morning about the perceived problems with these new trends, but guess what, they're a reality. Over the next week I'll be posting some thoughts on this subject, particularly how practitioners can make those initial steps into a world they have no control over....or do they?