Heather Anderson Back in the 1980s, I was one of hundreds of thousands of college freshmen who chose journalism for a major. It's important to note that back in those days, Gen X didn't necessarily seek out meaningful careers like today's millennials. Most of us wanted TransAms and credit cards instead.

Newspaper jobs didn't pay much back then, certainly not enough for a new TransAm, but a news career was sexy. The first thing I ever knew about government was Watergate, and The Washington Post's Woodward and Bernstein were center stage in that drama.

Plus, back in those days journalists got to drink and smoke at their desks. To an 18-year-old, that seemed pretty cool.

Then, my junior year of college, I switched my primary area of study from print journalism to public relations. By then it was the 90s and newspapers were laying off employees, not hiring.

I kept writing for the college paper and still had those Woodward and Bernstein dreams, but school I took a job in sales, eventually finding my way to credit union marketing.

My story is not unique.

A recent article published on the left-leaning digital news site takepart.com addressed the growing disparity between the number of public relations specialists compared to the number of employed reporters.

Currently, there are 4.6 PR reps for every reporter.

Back in the 80s, the margin was 1.2 to 1.

The current number of working reporters is about half of what it was in the 80s. Meanwhile, the PR industry has expanded. According to the article, which sourced the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, PR jobs are expected to grow 22.5% this decade. Not surprisingly, the article also said more than 60% of college students currently pursuing mass communication degrees are choosing the public relations option.

Those figures kind of shatter the myth of the ethically obsessed millennial.

Consider that anybody can publish a blog, tweet an announcement or produce a video for YouTube. Companies and the government no longer have to deal with pesky objective news reporters because they can reach their audience through other channels while controlling the message. And, they have more money to devote to production than most news organizations, which makes them more appealing.

We're currently finalizing the agenda for our annual all staff training and planning day. One topic that has come up again this year is how we will compete for our readers' time and attention against websites like Buzzfeed.

If you've been living under a rock, Buzzfeed publishes fun but intellectually vapid articles, many of them written by advertisers.

I can appreciate Buzzfeed's appeal. When our readers find the time to break away from sifting through quarterly financial reports or figuring out where to find enough revenue to keep the lights on, they're intellectually exhausted. They might not want to read our in-depth feature on the nuts and bolts of the NCUA's latest regulatory proposal. They might instead want click through a photo slide show featuring child actors from the 90s who have let themselves go.

Buzzfeed recently racked up 2.6 million views in two hours when it posted a video of President Obama playing with a selfie stick.

The video was a White House PR effort to make the president more likeable. Obama isn't the first president to do that; PR is not partisan. But what has changed is that technology has cut out the news middleman.

Not all PR is nefarious, but when it replaces objective news, reported without fear or favor, Americans will grow increasingly misinformed and, in turn, be more easily manipulated by those who do have nefarious agendas.

We received some negative feedback after publishing a story in which Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, wouldn't state his position on the credit union tax exemption. Don't make Shelby look bad right before GAC, some readers urged, because it doesn't promote the credit union movement.

We love credit unions as much as our readers do. We want our readers to succeed, and we write in-depth feature articles, produce webinars and develop conference sessions to help make that happen.

However, advocating for the credit union movement is not our role.

We'll do our best to hold your attention with list stories and photo slide shows, but we will also continue to report credit union news, without fear or favor, and do our best to keep our readers from being misinformed or manipulated.

Instant Insights /

Without Fear or Favor: Our Commitment to News

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