“In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger,” NYT’s Jeremy W. Peters explores how reporters are under more pressure to be the “most viewed article” on the website. Gawker even displays the top ten articles on large flat screen televisions in their newsroom. It has been dubbed as “big board” and is updated hourly.

With tightening budgets and magazines and newspapers cutting reporters left and right, the ones who remain now have less bandwidth and must compete to get the most page views. With their jobs and livelihood on the line each and every day, there’s never been a more critical time for PR professionals to reflect and be more cognizant of how they are approaching these time-strapped and multi-tasking reporters every day.

So what can we do to make their lives a little easier?  How do we help those reporters make their articles reach the top ten?

Be interesting and relevant

Look at your favorite news website – what’s in the top ten for the day? What’s being read? Chances are, it’s an article that is timely, interesting and relevant to all the readers of each website. Reporters who are competing with each other aren’t going to be looking at a simple (and let’s face it – yawn – oftentimes boring) product pitch to get in the top ten, they need something more compelling, more relevant, more consumable.

So, look at the big picture

Reporters are looking for those ideas that show what’s going on in the world and how it ties into their readers. As a PR professional, if you’re able to spot the upcoming trends before they are fully formed, you’ll be an asset to the reporter. If you have zeroed in on an emerging trend, be selective in who you send it to — giving a highly-targeted reporter an exclusive to the bigger picture story will help them “wow” their audience, ensure the right visibility for your client, and only strengthen your media relationships for future benefit.

Get to know your reporters

Reporters have never been more accessible than now. If you take the time to really get to know each of your target reporters, it will not only help you and your clients, but you may find that you’ve forged a new relationship (and friendship) for the long-term.  The best PR/reporter relationships are ones in which there is a mutually beneficial and respectful relationship and rapport.  Take the time to see what they’re Tweeting, blogging and writing about – i.e. take the time to get to know them.  See if they have personal blogs, too (e.g. a reporter might have a personal blog about parenting; perhaps something you could relate back to in your conversation) and get to know them on a personal level.  They are, after all, humans just like us!

As PR professionals, communications is our forte and trade.  With all these new forms of communication, it is up to us to figure out the most appropriate and relevant way to get in front of these reporters with a carefully crafted and thoughtful angle or story.  With the right approach, they will look to us as excellent resources for their next big idea and will view us as a partner in their success, helping them reach the “big board.”

This story by Mike Masnick @TechDirt tackles fair use and whether or not Channel 7 actually can demand people not use the clip, which until now had stayed semi-under the radar.  Of course, the very best way to generate more unwanted publicity for video, audio or text posted to the web is to hire a bunch of lawyers to spook the few people who posted the video and moved on, until they got spooked by lawyers.

It’s like poking a tiger in a cage.  First bloggers will echo the story, then pundits move in to dissect the situation (which is where we’re at now), then the story will get more blown out of proportion by mainstream outlets.

Of course, with events in the world being what they are this is not anything of consequence.  But still, there’s something interesting in watching digital media (mostly open) wrestle with legacy media (mostly proprietary, filtered) over control of content’s soul.

The Wall Street Journal news is a little surprising given the past year’s prevailing atmosphere of media consolidation, collapses and closures.  The paper seems to be bucking the trend and turning Rupert Murdoch into a “could be” prophet when he said “the philistine phase of the Digital Age is almost over.” Is it really possible not everyone on the web will demand free content?  The Journal’s news seems to say so.  But The Journal is The Journal and certainly–just as in all industries–there are islands unaffected by tides.

BusinessWeek’s situation likely more accurately reflects the publishing industry’s status.  While the ‘08/’09 economic crash can take some of the blame for the decline in advertising revenue, the industry’s problems had been building for some time.  The web has forced newsrooms to shrink, foreign bureaus to close and has hampered the ability of mainstream publications to keep up with breaking news over social tools and networks.  Traditional outlets may excel at analysis, but they can’t beat the web in a number of areas which used to be dominated by newspapers, news programs, radios and magazines–especially weekly magazines.  Eventually and surely, new technology overcomes old methods.  Bloomberg is a data-driven organization that has learned to adapt to the web, and the web has made available more data to an increasingly wider audience which Bloomberg would like to tap.  BusinessWeek’s straightforward ability to analyze and simplify market news probably fills an increasingly larger need in Bloomberg’s organization as it looks to expand its influence beyond the financial spectrum.

For the media (and for advertising, PR and other dependent industries) the signals to adapt and even plan for what’s ahead couldn’t be more clear.  The media has to write for the web, business has to build for it, and the rest of us need to embrace living in that world.

As we see fewer editorial contacts at the major print outlets, we will see an increase in freelance and even “citizen” journalists with the ability to publish and build an audience at their whim. Social media savvy has become increasingly critical in reaching and influencing these new thought leaders, and the successful employment of tactics and strategies take more than just passing familiarity with the medium.  The mainstream media’s mixed messages are keeping all of us on our toes, and for the best of us, on top of our game, too.