In the before times, there were people whose entire job was to clip your name out of a newspaper. A physical bureau, staffed by real humans with scissors, tracked press coverage for PR firms and their clients. They mailed stacks of paper clippings before anyone had thought to call it a media monitoring service. Burrell’s did this for 136 years before quietly shutting its doors in June 2024.
In this episode, Karen Swim, APR, and Michelle Kane take a nostalgic and forward-looking tour through the evolution of public relations practice — from the physical press kits assembled at Kinko’s and faxed press releases that were easy to send and hard to get noticed, to the emerging job titles now beginning to appear on org charts at major corporations. What’s replacing the old tools isn’t just new software. It’s a fundamentally different kind of communicator: one who can translate the impact of AI to internal teams, integrate fragmented communications functions across an organization, and serve as a strategic bridge between technology and people.
The through-line connecting the cutting room floor to the C-suite? The translation is still the job. And for solo practitioners, the opportunity to step into these emerging roles, before corporate headcount cycles have even created the title, has never been more immediate.