What Most PR People Miss About the New Media Landscape
Every PR conversation I'm in right now sounds the same. AI answer engines. Creators. Going direct. Community. The vocabulary has caught up with the moment. The practice mostly hasn't.
The shift is real. This year's Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that social and video platforms are now the most used news sources worldwide, ahead of TV and publishers' own sites. AI chatbots are a growing, if still small, part of how people find news. And trust in news is at its lowest point since Reuters began tracking it.
But seeing the new channels isn't the same as seeing the shift. Here's what I think most of us are missing.
Eight things the PR leaders are getting wrong
AI isn't a channel. It's a reader of everything. We ask how to "get into ChatGPT" as if it were an outlet to pitch. But AI engines describe a company using its whole footprint: old coverage, Wikipedia, Reddit threads, Glassdoor reviews, a stale About page. A badly framed story from three years ago can still shape the answer. The job now includes curating the record, not just adding to it.
Clarity beats reach. A splashy feature that never says plainly what you do is worth less to a model than a dull trade story with a precise description and a real number. We still write pitches for headlines, not for being quoted accurately.
Journalism matters more, not less. "Media is dying, go direct" is the popular take. Yet studies of AI citations keep finding that earned media and journalism make up most of what models cite. Going direct builds a relationship. Earned coverage builds credibility. You need both.
Creators aren't influencers. Audiences trust news creators because they seem independent. Paying for posts and demanding approval destroys exactly what you're buying. Treat creators like reporters: real briefings, real access, and room to be critical.
We're measuring the wrong thing. Impressions and share of voice don't answer the question that matters now: when someone asks an AI about our category, are we in the answer, and is it right? Whoever defines that metric inside a company will own the budget. If comms doesn't claim it, SEO or marketing will.
Our crisis plans assume the wrong order of events. Playbooks still start with a reporter's call. Today a narrative can harden in a viral clip, a Reddit thread and an AI summary before any journalist is involved. And a framing a model absorbs can outlast the news cycle by months.
We treat community as a place to broadcast. Reddit, Discord, Slack groups and niche forums are where reputations actually form, and they show up constantly in AI answers. They are also allergic to anything that smells like PR. A brand account dropping announcements gets ignored or mocked. Engineers, executives and customers who participate honestly, answer hard questions and admit what isn't working build more trust than any campaign.
We think going direct will fix a trust problem. Owned channels are powerful, but they don't create credibility on their own. Polished brand content now reads as a warning sign. Going direct only works when a company has something real to say, says it consistently and owns its mistakes in public. The best founder and company voices sound like people, not institutions.
What to do instead
None of this requires a new agency or a rebrand. It starts with a few habits.
Ask the machines. Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity what they know about your company and your category. Note what's wrong, what's missing and which sources they cite. That list is your new media plan.
Fix the record. Update the About page, the leadership bios, the newsroom and the FAQs so they state plainly what you do. Correct outdated facts wherever you can.
Publish something original every quarter. A survey, a data set or an index gives journalists, creators and AI engines a reason to cite you that isn't a press release.
Build a creator list as carefully as a media list. Newsletter writers, podcasters and YouTubers in your space deserve briefings and access, not scripts.
Put your executives on video and audio. Long conversations travel further, last longer and get quoted more than a polished statement.
The real shift is organizational
The biggest miss isn't tactical. Discovery, reputation and narrative now cut across comms, SEO, content, product marketing, community and social. Those teams usually report to different leaders and chase different metrics.
No single tactic will capture this moment. The companies that win will be the ones that bring those pieces together into one function. Most PR leaders are waiting to be handed that mandate. The ones who get ahead will propose it.
The new channels are easy to see. The harder question is who controls the record of a company, and how that record gets measured. That's the job now.
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