I hear the chorus - when it comes to pitching the media - traditional media like newspapers or tv shows - they want the story. They are sick of pitches that either don’t apply to them, or that aren’t interesting.

Most of the time, it’s not interesting that you named a new CEO or made a new partnership. Your software or product isn’t that interesting (unless you’re Klimit). What makes things interesting is the human element or the story.

Reporters are burned out, stressed out, and many are losing their jobs right now. They don’t have energy and time to read about your news. So what is a PR firm or a company trying to get attention to do? Tell and distribute your own story. When and if you have a story that’s interesting or bigger, then go ahead and pitch.

In the meantime, your audience is a search engine. Or, it’s a social media site like Facebook where you interact with potential customers (or just people) directly. It’s really about being human, responding, and building trust with communities. It’s where someone who specifically cares about your industry, your product, or your company will find you.

You pay a lot for distribution (hiring someone to get the word out to new audiences). You have something to say but no one is listening. You can say it on your web site, but how many people will find it? Some. But if you distribute your news online hundreds of others outlets will see it, you’ll get more exposure. Your news will be interesting to someone and be reprinted, blogged about, or linked to on other web sites that otherwise wouldn’t know you exist.

Or, your news will just sit there until someone looks for it in a search engine. That’s good too. Because search engines don’t get headaches. They’re not overwhelmed or losing their jobs. They have space. Sure it helps to be interesting. But it’s not the same as pitching to media.

When it comes to news, search engines are the holders of information about your company. Traditional PR needs to weed through the news and choose the right outlet. Many stories will go to search engines. Some will get on the news. Clients must change from wanting to see stories about them in the press, to thinking about impressions, traffic to their web site, and direct sales from their news releases.

I’ll start out with the biggest news. For the first time that I know of, a famous blogger is being subpoenaed over comments on his blog. He didn’t actually make the comments but he quoted them. I met Jeremy of Shoemoney at Affiliate Summit for a brief moment. His blog is in the top 100 blogs. Yeah, while others in my state are trying to spot film celebrities, I’m in Vegas, flagging down a famous blogger.

Another Money was quoted in the newspaper today - Utah entrepreneur and blogger Ryan Money. The Salt Lake Tribune reported about how real estate web site Zillow.com often grossly overvalues or undervalues the price of homes. They also get a lot of details wrong, like the square footage. I guess it said the value of his Sugarhouse home was $1.8 million and it’s really worth less than half that. Money notes he’s still a Zillow fan.