Some years ago at a New York Public Relations firm where I worked, one of the younger members of the staff was tasked with the job of gathering all the press clippings for a particular client each month. She would diligently cut each one out, paste them on sheets of paper and type (yes, type) the circulation of the particular media source on each page. The client most likely didn’t bother to read the results of her labors… most likely, he weighed each report on a scale he had by his desk, which determined how much he would pay the agency… The New York Public Relations scene has certainly changed in the intervening years.

Clients of New York Public Relations firms may have a mistaken impression of how we operate. I suspect that they still believe that the executives of New York Public Relations firms are taking reporters out for two hour lunches or evening drinks at some of the town’s finer restaurants. They don’t see the half-eaten takeout lunches (and dinners, I might add) on chaotic desks.

The rise of social media and the 24-second (yes, I said “second”) news cycle have changed everything for New York Public Relations executives and their counterparts throughout the world. Given the immediacy of social media, corporate managers (and their New York Public Relations agency pros) have got to spend time monitoring and policing what’s being said by the digerati to safeguard the reputation of their brands and corporations.

We at New York Public Relations firms are probably working longer and harder than ever before. We deal with more information from more sources, we juggle meetings, calls, work, e-mail, IM, social media and of course most important of all our commitments to family and friends.

Some of us in the New York Public Relations ecosystem yearn for the simpler times when news cycles lasted a bit longer (at least you got to eat lunch).

Kevin Waddel is a free lance writer. To get more information about Public relations, New York Public Relations, New York city public relations, Investor relations New York, PR, Public Relations NY, Financial Services Relations in New York visit http://www.makovsky.com

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