I made my usual rounds this morning, checking my email, social nets and Twitter. It was on Twitter that I first found out about the death of George Carlin. In fact, others had posted that they, too, found out about Carlin's death via Twitter or Facebook or other social nets.

Local media outlets need to pay attention to this phenomenon. The old saying was "news is what I say it is." Then it was "news is when I say it is." Neither fly anymore. Instead, we have to be a part of the river of news.

Have a Twitter account for your station.Break the news wherever the audience is.

Recently an employee of a station asked me what I thought about how her channel wanted to promote how their website had a local story before anyone else. Should they promote that?

"Just on the site?" I asked. So? What if I didn't visit their site?

How do we shake this broadcast braggery? It's not about beating the other two or three guys in town. It doesn't work that way anymore. It's about being consistent and being ubiquitous. It's about breaking barriers.

Just like George did.