I woke up this morning and picked up this thing the young people today call a “newspaper.” It was kind of an ashy white with black lettering — some in bold typeface and some not. It had color photos of people who looked like they were unhappy or sweating a lot while they consumed vast quantities of pork products. Interesting, novel.

I’m a sports fan and I found this section called “SPORTS.” I read this black typeface that was in bold and had a photo of a joyless guy. His name was Bryan Burwell, and his headline read, “Steelers QB latest to land on hot seat.”

I thought to myself, “Wow, I didn’t hear anything about this on any of the ESPN properties like .com, ESPN Radio, or Sports Center. What up with Ben Roethlisberger?”

So I read Happy Burwell’s piece and it appears Big Ben may have learned nothing from the Kobe Bryant rape case. He now has a new civil suit filed against him by a young lady who claims he took a few too many liberties. Not good business at all for anyone — especially a Super Bowl winning QB.

I found it odd that this was the first time I had heard about it — this from someone who spends a fair amount of time on ESPN and sports blogs — hell, I write for one. But for the most part blogs and sports media in general has been inundated covering Michael Vick’s prison release (no more Dickies!) and the Erin Andrews naked hotel video debacle. Deadspin at least had something posted at 5:40 p.m. on July 21 as the story was breaking.

I went to Twitter — the true source for immediacy — where I found this:

Clearly, it’s making the rounds. But not hearing anything about this train wreck from ESPN?  Then I saw ProFootballTalk.com reporting that ESPN made an editorial decision to not report on it. OK, they piled on Kobe too much an figured they’d take a more measured approach here and wait it out a bit.

So I started thinking about the implications as well as my reactions as a sports news consumer:

• I rely far too much on ESPN.
• Most stories today — whether it be sports, news, or trends on retired Muppets — are beginning outside the traditional media forum.
• Traditional media, however, is still the validating point that reignites any story.
• ESPN has far too much power and should be destroyed with the exception of Scott Van Pelt’s wardrobe.

Most important, especially for marketers and all the doomsday forecasters out there: Traditional media is not dead. Any consultant who tells you that is leading you down a path that is irresponsible.

Should companies be shifting more of their marketing spend into a social media? Of course, maybe even half. Just check out some of the stats in this piece from MediaPost.com such as the fact that companies with the highest levels of social media activity on average increased revenues by 18 percent in the last 12 months, while the least active saw sales drop 6 percent over that period. The numbers don’t lie.

But just keep in mind, what you need today is an integrated, triangulated approach that blends the marketing disciplines of new and traditional media, advertising and PR, blog outreach and using social forums.

No, traditional media is not dead. It’s just part of a broader marketing solution.

Carry on.