Last Friday, I was sitting in the aisle seat of a Northwest flight headed from Detroit to LaGuardia when an older woman approached our row and said she’d rather sit in my spot than shimmy her way to the window seat she had booked. The guy sitting in the middle realized as soon as he moved over to the window seat that this turn of events was less than fair for me. It’s a quick flight (I know it well as we have a client in the Detroit area); it wasn’t worth making them both get up, so in the middle seat I sat.

As soon as she sat down, the woman said in a spirited tone, “What kind of ship are we on?” I looked at the safety card and reported it was an Airbus 330. She then told us she worked in the airline business before we were born. It turns out she was a flight attendant in the mid-1940s.

The remainder of the flight felt a little like talking to Gloria Stuart’s character in the movie “Titanic.” She spoke of the soldiers coming home from WWII on her planes and how she had no way of reheating passengers’ meals, so the food was served quickly and often cold. She said the airline, which was later sold to one of the big players, forced her to quit when she married her husband. Then she asked me, “Do you know where Idlewild Airport is?” She said that was the airport she used to fly in and out of in New York. I told her I hadn’t heard of it and wondered if it was once the name of the airport on Long Island used by Southwest, among others. I made a mental note to check online at home, simply to satisfy my own curiosity, but forgot as soon as the plane landed. After the woman got her things, she leaned over to me and the man next to me and said, “Well, I am glad there are at least two people who can still do business in Detroit.”

I hope I am as alive and engaged as this woman when I am 87 years old.

Fast forward to Monday morning. I picked up a copy of am New York in the lobby of our office building. As I waited for my email to download, I flipped through the quick-serve news source. When I saw the headline, “At Idlewild, books for all places,” I was quickly reminded of our conversation. A review of a new bookstore called Idlewild Books informed me that it was the original name of John F. Kennedy Airport (it’s apparently had a few names over the years, but has been JFK since 1963). The store’s collection includes travel guides, literature and non-fiction titles representing 100 countries across the globe. The moniker is a nod to the airport so many New Yorkers use to leave the country as well as a nice dose of nostalgia.

I originally chose to keep the middle seat because I figured it was easier for everyone. But doing so led to a rich conversation I won’t soon forget and ultimately learning about a new bookstore in which I am sure to spend many hours and even more dollars. It seems that every aspect of how we share and absorb information is ever-changing. But, no matter the source, storytelling remains a constant that binds our present to our past.

At the risk of seeming insensitive: Enough already with “changing media landscape.” Let’s not lose sight of the fact that there are some truths about journalism that will likely never change. The moving or still image, for example, continues to reign supreme when it comes to storytelling.

When I first entered the PR profession, I quickly learned how important it is to provide journalists with a series of photos or photo opportunities with an announcement. At the time, I represented The University of Maryland Medical Center and we were promoting “discovery” tours for aspiring medical students, which happened over the course of two weeks. The first week, we had zero media coverage. The next week, my boss suggested I add detailed descriptions of what the kids would see on campus. A heart that had a heart attack. A hyperbaric chamber where people were treated for flesh-eating bacteria. A lab filled with mosquitoes used to test anti-malaria drugs. Bingo. That week, the local ABC affiliate dedicated a two-minute health segment to the tour and the Associated Press sent a photographer whose pictures appeared in newspapers across the region.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and the only real differences today are the proliferation of media channels for the images and the growing acceptance of citizen photojournalists. Whether you’re pitching an idea to a traditional publication or to a blogger, well-shot photography and video are key elements to placing your story. And those same assets can also fuel the social media fire if they are interesting, relevant and easily accessible.

While this may seem intuitive, we continue to see instances where organizations don’t make the extra effort to provide quality photography or video for the media. In our experience, if your imagery doesn’t effectively tell your story, you are doing your PR effort a major disservice.