The article in the July 5, Sunday edition of The New York Times (NYT) titled “Spinning the Web: P.R. in the Silicon Valley,” has the PR world “a-twittering” because it brought to the fore the evolutionary changes in the PR industry on the front page of the business section. How great is that…

Although the article’s focus was on PR and the Silicon Valley, its main point – that capturing attention for clients with mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs is no longer enough, cuts across the PR industry.  Accordingly, the PR professional now needs to also “court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.”

Some say, a transformation.  I see it as a “changing of the guards.”  PR has always been about finding the influencer, the person, entity or even the public at large — that can shape the way a company or its news is heard and perceived.  So now the players have changed, and with it, the “tools of the trade” as to how to reach the influencers, but the very premise of PR has not.

Look, it’s not new that with the advent of “citizen journalism,” the lines have blurred between journalists and everyone else.  Nor is it new that the metrics of calculating the number of impressions an article gets, either by estimating a publication’s circulation, article’s column inches or pass-along rate, are now more and more calculated by the number of followers twitters may have tweeted, or the number of re-tweets or clicks on links, as well as traffic from Facebook and other social networks.

The NYT article focused on a publicist whose main purpose as she first set out to be a publicist, was to develop one-on-one relationships with “hundreds of bloggers, writers, pundits and then boasted that her extensive list of “friends” who are on her “who’s who list” is the “value” she offers.

Which reminded me that PR at its core, has always been about relationships. All one has to do is look at the word itself, as in the Relations part, of Public Relations. Years ago there was the case of a PR practitioner whose sole activity was to have breakfast, lunch and dinner six days a week with prospects or clients during which he opened up his then “Rolodex” and became the facilitator for needed connections.  That too was about relationships.

The players and processes have changed and the means with which to spread the word, but building and maintaining a network of contacts, be they traditional media, new media, talent agents, bloggers, twitters, etc. has never been disputed as to its value for clients.

Relationships matter, but content is always “King.”  Relationships should be viewed as a starting point that eases the path for a story to be heard.  But it is always about the story, how it is told to what influencers or decision makers, how it gets spun or socialized and within what context it is presented and viewed. Only then can the relationship hold up and do its part.

The more that changes, the more remains the same…