What all of this has taught and shown me is that regardless of how much the media and the technology have changed, little has changed in the way we relate to the media. If we did something stupid 20 years ago, the odds are we're still doing it stupidly now. News releases, in spite of overwhelming numbers of attempts at teaching students and new professionals how to correctly prepare them, continue to show up with atrocious misspellings, grammatical errors, no news value and incomplete information. Ignoring the advice of experts, agencies and companies blast news releases to any breathing media person rather than target the right medium for the right reason at the right time with the right technique. If the relationship wasn't effective before the introduction of e-mail, fax on demand, web sites or data banks, the relationship won't be effective now.
Technology is a tool, albeit a powerful fun tool but, a tool nonetheless.
You can't substitute technology for the care and feeding of a long-term relationship. Technology doesn't go to an editorial board meeting. Technology doesn't interview your client. Technology doesn't make the decision about what will go into a news cast. This manual is intended only to be a guide.