WAKING UP and grabbing the morning newspaper just isn?t what it used to be. Ten or 15 years ago, the paper gave us our first glimpse at what happened around the town, state and world on the previous day, and told us what we could expect in the coming hours.

But that has changed.

These days, news doesn?t arrive every 24 hours in black and white. It arrives every minute of every day. It comes on our cable channels, computer screens, BlackBerrys and cell phones.

Many news consumers now turn to Web sites and blogs instead of the newspaper. We no longer all read the same news that has been fed to us by a single gatekeeper. Now, anyone with a computer can be a journalist and send information worldwide in an instant.

That means that news today is instantaneous and interactive ? so much so that it?s hard to keep up with who is talking about our businesses and our communities, and even harder to know who to trust or how to react.  

So how should companies work with the media in this new world? In some ways, we should follow the same processes that we always have:

? Know what you want to say before you contact a reporter. For instance, what are you asking the reporter to do? What is your organization?s position? What can your organization provide? Is this a time-sensitive issue?

? Research your target audiences and what they read, listen to and watch. If you are trying to reach customers in a specific community, you will want to be familiar with their weekly newspaper and radio stations. If you want to target business owners, work with business or industry-specific publications. Every company and every situation is different the same is true for which media you may be working with each time.

? Don?t call a reporter until you know he or she is the right person to cover your issue. Ask yourself what the nature of your story is, not just what the nature of your business is. For instance, if your business is implementing creative ?reduce, reuse, recycle? ideas that came from your employees, you may want to contact environmental reporters rather than reporters who cover your specific industry?s beat.

If all of the basic rules are the same, then what?s different?

? Monitor what?s being said about you. To make sure you know what is being shared about your company, assign someone in your organization to monitor online news sites and blogs every day for information that could help or hurt your company. Waiting until the next day?s newspaper could do permanent damage.

One easy monitoring tool is ?Google Alerts,? a program that e-mails you updates of the latest relevant Google results related to your company, industry or an important issue that affects you (such as fuel prices, tax changes and so on).

? Be ready to move at lightning speed. Gone are the days when print reporters work on a 24-hour news cycle. When a reporter calls, he or she is likely working on a story that will be filed within minutes. You need to have answers on the spot or be ready to find the information quickly. If you don?t, you will likely miss out on opportunities.