Where do you get your news these days?

If you’re a purist, you’re probably still waking up to your local TV affiliate’s morning broadcast for weather and traffic, then staying tuned for the national morning show for a glimpse of what’s going on in the world. And kudos to you if you receive a hard copy of a newspaper.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: news media is changing every day. Okay, duh. It’s not a secret since most of us have news alerts pushed to our phones, aggregate our favorite news sources through Flipboard on our iPads, or rely on Facebook’s algorithm to tell us what news is trending.

There are two sides to this media coin: how consumers’ content consumption is driving change in the news media landscape and how we (PR practitioners) adapt to it.

Website coverage used to be a nice supplement to the print spread you scored in a magazine. Not these days. Digital and mobile are driving forces behind the sweeping changes and online outlets are now a “must-get” for PR pros. Digital outlets like BuzzFeed and Gawker are gaining legit street cred, while conduits like Flipboard make it easy for consumers to tailor delivery of the news they want. We need to understand where and how our clients’ target audiences operate and secure media placements where those audience sectors are.

Earlier this year CBS News and BuzzFeed announced a partnership to extend the “BuzzFeed Brews” series from solely political news to mainstream entertainment and pop culture information. BuzzFeed Brews will also extend its reach from web, social media and live streaming to next-day recaps on CBS This Morning.

More recently, NBCUniversal News Group announced a partnership last week with NowThis News, which will take short video news segments and make them available for consumption on social media sites and mobile devices. This complements NBC’s January 2 announcement about its investment in Re/code (from co-founders of AllThingsD) and its partnership with that outlet on financial news. Most importantly, Re/code content will be utilized across all NBC properties.

For more details, check out The New York Times’ January 12 article about NBCUniversal and NowThis News’ partnership: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/business/media/nbcs-news-unit-teams-with-video-clip-start-up.html?_r=0

For a media relations junkie like myself, these announcements make my job both challenging and invigorating. It’s not just about scoring the elusive TODAY Show segment or above-the-fold USA Today feature story, but keeping up with the ever-changing landscape and, most importantly, figuring out where and how key audiences are consuming content. We must educate our clients about the rapidly changing news media landscape so they are knowledgeable about the importance of these emerging outlets. Long gone is the concept of “traditional media.” PR pros – it’s time you buzz and flip through a variety of digital sites to stay current on news now.

Tell us how your daily news-gathering activities have changed. What are your go-to news sites and preferences? Share below or on our Facebook page.