All the news that's fit to...

I won't tell you where I was sitting when I wirelessly sent a coupon to my printer from my iPad, but that instant took me directly to 1998 and a pair of suits in a crowded Houston Chronicle elevator.  They entered the car talking about a meeting on the newspaper's website.
"We're in the news business not the video game business," said the shorter one.
The other one was young enough to know better, but stated with supreme confidence that "the internet will replace newspapers the day you can read it on the can and clip coupons."
I was among those who nodded my head in ignorant assent. We were the candlemakers in a world about to go incadescent.
I grew up with the morning paper at breakfast and the evening paper at dinner. Leaving home meant I could have any section I wanted any time I wanted. Working for daily newspapers meant I could have the very first editions still warm from the press.  I was of the Woodward and Bernstein J-School generation who fought ferociously for the one job in the field available for every 14 absurdly idealistic graduates.
The pay was as ridiculous as the hours, but like most of my colleagues I was grateful for every minute. We were the gatekeepers, the arbiters, the message makers.  We fought each other daily for a share of the coveted news hole. They only thing better than a byline was the snowball effect a good story could create. The copy desk was the battleground for hundreds of stories and pitches that would result in the dozens of stories that ran each day. Successor media - newsmagazines, radio,  and television -- worked on the same scale and principle.
Many people worked to provide the best possible product which was paid for by the advertiser who wanted their messages with that product--  because it delivered captive and engaged readers/viewers/listeners to what they had to sell.
When I started in newspaper in 1980,  the editorial and advertising staffs were forbidden from each others' floors in the building. We were as likely to sit together in the caferteria as the cheerleaders and the chess club.
But, as you have likely heard,  that internet thing caught on and with it came new digital delivery systems in publishing, television, radio, music, newsgathering and even how singles date and mate.
The concept of trained and highly competitive people deciding what you wanted to know was immediately challenged by the ability of anyone to post anything and for you to find what you want when you want it.
Knocking out most of that obstruction also removed much of the fact-checking and fairness that was previously at the core of the process. Anything can go anywhere on the internet instantly and live there for perpetuity. The line between news/entertainment/advertising is worn thin when it exists at all.
Opportunity today exists not in discarding traditional media or exclusively embracing the expanding digital horizon. It is essential for anyone with a message that needs to be shared to know their audience -- who they are and where they are --- and deliver the message on their terms.
Print/broadcast held the hill for a long time before the digitial revolution exploded. In this third phase, Reputation 3.0,  the medium is not nearly as important as the message/ audience couplet. P.T. Barnum had it half right when he said to give the people what they want -- it's just as important to deliver it where they want it.