The United States was founded on the principle that the peoplewould control the government and the government would protect thepeople. There are three pillars of government: The legislative,executive and judicial branches. Each provides a check and balanceto the other.

On top of that, there is still a fourth estate: the media. Ifthe government doesn't live up to the people, members of the pressare supposed to be there to call it out. Journalism is aboutdigging for the truth so the public can make the right choices whenit comes to the government.

Real investigative journalism is dying. In the rush for higherprofits, the true purpose has been lost. When your eye is trainedon the profit margin, it's not on the ball. The mentality haschanged to profits first and then you'll be able to do a thoroughjob rather than the profits will come if you provide a solidservice that readers are willing to pay for.

There's also increased focus on delivery mechanisms rather thanthe substance of the job. For example, one reporter I know said hercollege discontinued journalism classes and instead was tying theminto technology classes. Another colleague said his college gave upon journalism 15 years ago.

The delivery methods are important and it's crucial to stay upon evolving technology. That is the future of news consumption. Butwhen no one is left who knows how to sniff out clues beyond aGoogle search and reporters' training is honed around the rightquestions to ask, what does that say for the content itself?

Credit unions and newspapers alike have struggled over the lastfew years. They've struggled because they weren't evolving with thetimes. Many now have the latest delivery mechanisms in place, whatare you going to do with that?

I recently attended the New Jersey Credit Union League RealityCheck. The common theme echoing through the halls was holding theNCUA accountable for the corporate losses and determining the realreasoning behind the agency not spreading out the corporateassessments earlier in the process. The FDIC has gotten morecreative with its accounting, so why not the NCUA, credit unionexecutives were asking. It is our duty to ferret out theanswers.

Credit Union Times has undergone many changes in thelast couple of years. We've redesigned our magazine and overhauledour website. We've repackaged and reworked.

We've stayed on top of breaking news and that was plenty to keepour small staff busy. But we followed it. We didn't take the leadwith it.

Credit Union Times remains the credit union news marketleader in all ways but that doesn't mean it's been enough for ourreadership. As the fourth pillar we should have been the onesdelving into corporate portfolios to figure out just how they heckwere they generating these amazing returns before the crisis rippedthrough the industry like the Merrill Lynch bull in a chinashop.

Investigative journalism may be dying but it's not dead. We'regoing to breathe life into it here. There are still publicationsand news sites out there like Fast Company, TheEconomist, Financial Times and Politico that havebeen successful both critically and commercially. They do that byproviding what no one else is: in-depth, forward-thinking contentand they're doing it through all the various channels.

In the coming weeks and months, you'll be flipping through thepages of our sleek redesigned magazine and you're going to see arenewed vigor in real news and information analysis coming out ofCredit Union Times. You'll see it on our modern and betterfunctioning website.

Our tagline is 'Trusted News for Credit Union Leaders.' Thatmeans holding feet to the fire and finding out what's really goingon. That means seeing the trend before it becomes a trend. We'regoing to live up to that.