Are Outdoors Writers Losing Significance At SHOT?

Times change and so does the delivery of information disseminated from events such as the SHOT Show.  Imagine a day when something big took place and it took days, weeks, perhaps even months before the news of “what’s happening” become widespread knowledge to the general public.

When I attended my first SHOT Show back in 1989 there was maybe 300 or so outdoors writers who annually gathered at the event.   It was old school film cameras and notebooks.   I don’t specifically recall, there might have been a few word processors, copying machines and a fax machine, but it is nothing like it is today.

Back then news spread the quickest if someone had a radio show or wrote for a newspaper and happened to cover the event.   In most cases, however, if hunters or the shooting world wanted to learn of new products coming on the marketplace introduced at SHOT they waited several months until closer to fall to read about those sort of things in a magazine.   It’s how the news was delivered back then and people generally accepted it.

Yet, in those early years there were some curmudgeons who had visions of better ways.   One particular writer whom I admired was Bill Clede, a prolific author on guns and matters involving police work.   Bill was an early adopter of what was evolving into the Internet.   Indeed, my first few years as a young writer was spent listening to Bill and and handful of others extol the virtues of an emerging possibility where instantaneous messaging and pictures could be transmitted from one computer to another clear across the country.

I know what you’re thinking.  Wow, those must have been the dark ages.   Well, in some regards it was a pivotal time in the transformation of information dissemination.   We used CompuServe and had forums with archaic bulletin boards that largely functioned similar to what Facebook does today, but lightyears ahead of that social exercise.   But at the time it was not the Internet.   At least not yet.

To access CompuServe I had to purchase a modem capable of a blazing 300 baud speed.   Eventually the 1200/2400 bauds arrived.   Either way, it required me to place a long distance phone call (in my case to Rochester, MN), to connect to the CompuServe portal and interact.   I was not one of the lucky folks who lived in a city where such a call was a local call.   Thus, I used a program called TapCIS which was a DOS-based program allowing quicker access to CompuServe.   In essence, folks like me would do everything offline—connect to the portal—TapCIS would quickly work its magic, and then I would end the phone call to read what was happening.

Doesn’t sound very efficient, does it?   Well, this happened to be cutting edge communication technology back in the 1980s, folks.   Suddenly a writer sitting in the Press Room at SHOT could theoretically start spilling the beans about new products and subscribers around the country could tune in and discover the news almost as it was happening.

Fast Forward To Today

Gone are the modems with the squealing hook-up noises.   Gone are the long waits for news of what is happening at SHOT.   Gone is the consumer’s patience to wait until mid summer to learn about what new products they will be buying next fall.   Gone is much of the life us pre-technology outdoors writers once understood to be business as usual.

Indeed, during the 2015 SHOT Show information will be blazing out of the confines of Las Vegas even long before the doors of SHOT open on that first morning.   No longer will a press kit filled with news releases and product shots hold the same significance as it once did to a writer.  In fact, most press kits these days are old news before the writer even gets a hold of them.

There was a time during SHOT Show when the organizers sent yellow windbreaker clad folks around on “camera patrol” making sure no pictures where being taken except by qualified journalists.   I suspect that policy is still in place, but let’s face reality.   Next week when SHOT gets underway there won’t be a smartphone at the Sands Convention Center without multiple images in violation of that policy.  To think otherwise is simply being foolish.

Instead of a controlled group of media aiming to distribute the sights and glitz known as the SHOT Show it will be folks on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, blogs and a host of other specialized Internet sharing forums.   Within seconds of a picture being taken at SHOT that image and information will be shared to a hungry public willing to consume it anywhere in the world.

Truly, it’s a wonderful thing what has evolved in just a few short decades.   In every show attendee’s pocket/purse is the technology and more importantly the capability to spread the industry news at what once was an unimaginable speed.   Instead of relying on several hundred media types to eventually filter the news, now all show attendees feel motivated to share the excitement and the details from SHOT.

So, where does that leave the legitimate media who still attends SHOT?  Are they lost in the blur of an evolving world where communication flows freely by the masses?   How the hell does a person who desires to make a profession in media still carve out a niche where their efforts have some meaningful significance?

No doubt, it’s a challenge.  Long gone is the excitement of returning home from SHOT thinking your have some “scoop” of information just waiting to develop into a story.   Hell, these days if you wait until you get back to the hotel room you’re probably too late as someone else has already beaten you.

These are exciting times.   A person following the right #hashtags can watch a constant stream of information and pictures develop from SHOT.   Never before could a person lacking the qualifications to physically be AT SHOT feel they have a virtual seat within the halls of SHOT simply by sitting at their computer and following along.

Oh yes, I still have fond memories of what SHOT used to mean to me as an outdoors writer.  That said, I also realize how the future holds many exciting possibilities that perhaps we have not even dreamt of quite yet.

As with anything else in life if you want to maintain significance you need to be willing to change and be an early adopter of that change.  That’s what a few of us with vision did back in the late ’80s…and look where we ended up today because of it.