BL Ochman’s What’s Next? includes a post about a cyberalert.com study that suggest most PR people “are not altering their media monitoring methods to adapt to recent changes in media channels and the new realities of digital news dissemination.”

According to the executive summary of The 2004 Worldwide Market Survey on Media Monitoring, “Despite recent advances in news monitoring services, traditional services like paper-based clipping and in-house monitoring remain the primary tools used by PR professionals to monitor the news.”

Since cyberalert.com is a media monitoring company, much of the study produces self-serving results, such as the higher satisfaction levels clients have with digital vs. paper monitoring services. Still, the fact that most PR people rely on paper clipping services means they’re missing out on important news that is delivered only online, via online news sources, blogs, and other channels. The study offers one more reason that PR people need to be pushed into recognizing these important new non-traditional media outlets. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess client reaction when their agencies miss critical information, emerging trends and breaking news because they’re not paying attention to online media.