photo courtesy of Jessica Lewis on pexels.com
By: Jennifer Tolbert
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — From being a small-town city hall reporter to being a communication specialist at Auburn University at Montgomery and a career spanning over 20 years, Adrienne Nettles has first-hand experience in what it means to grow in your career.
Her profession has given her plenty of opportunities and the ability to learn. Such as the rise in a demanding digital world.
In high school in Mobile Nettles knew she had a love for writing, and she set her sights on attending a local university, Spring Hill College, to be able pursue her interest in perfecting her craft. While there she initially declared English as her major. However, after being encouraged to switch majors and heeding warnings of stigma against English majors she eventually changed her degree to journalism.
“I was an English major, English, you know, they said the same thing about English (majors), kind of boring, you can’t do much with it. It’s not transferable into many fields… I’m glad I did listen to that recruiter at the university at the time and change to communications because I love writing, and communication can translate into many other areas and fields.”
Changing her major ended up being the right call because she fell in love with being a journalist. After graduation she started her journey as a reporter at the Gadsden Times in 2001 after a year she made her move to the Tuscaloosa News. All these newspapers were still relatively close to home. Nettles decided to make the jump from “Sweet home Alabama “to “everything is bigger in Texas.” Specifically, she landed a job at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“I actually loved being a reporter and a journalist. It’s fast-paced. There’s never a dull day and you get to meet people of all different walks of life and tell their stories.” Nettles explained. “…not only talking to people in the community but sitting in meetings to see how government works and how decisions are made, and people’s daily lives that they don’t realize, or some people don’t realize it’s taking place. That they have a voice and that you can be that voice for them to keep them informed.”
Between the years 2009 and 2010 it was this time that she noticed a shift in the newspaper industry. With seemingly new technology advancement every day and the rise in social media apps and websites, media as she knew it was becoming the thing of the past. However, the change was still happening, and the newspaper industry is no longer what it used to be, she said.
“At the time I was a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a lot of newspapers were going digital, until they were looking for digital advertising and so people weren’t really picking up newspapers anymore, which you rarely do see newspapers…” Nettles stated. “Because some people still like, I still like the feel and smell of a newspaper. But people start getting smartphones, the news on smartphones, instant access and they didn’t want to read two or three pages of news they want a snippet of, hey, what happened, when, where, what’s the next step, and then they want to move on.”
While the newspaper industry was competing with the digital age, Nettles started to take note. She was noticing that one by one reporters were getting laid off. Still wanting to work as a journalist, Nettles got a new job at the Montgomery Advertiser but even there they were laying off reporters. The industry was changing fast and as a print journalist Nettles didn’t want to be next on the chopping block.
She had to make the next jump in career so she could have a stable job that would provide for her. Nettles went back to school during this shift to get her master’s degree in liberal arts at Texas Christian University in 2009. With this degree she was able to expand her skillset and gain insightful knowledge. This degree would also help her transition into public relations.
“I kind of pivoted because the industry was changing at that time…to public relations,” Nettles said.
While Nettles had this experience over a decade ago job insecurity is still on the rise, especially with new advancements made in artificial intelligence. She said it’s a system that is getting closer to human-level performance every day and it is designed to replace the same roles it’s mimicking. Nathaniel Meyersohn in his 2022 CNN article “Nobody likes self-checkout” discussed how the evolution of technology is leading to retailers cutting back on employees and replacing them with software. Store checkouts went from the first self-checkout machines in the 1986 to the convenient Amazon’s checkout-free stores of today, self-checkout is here to stay, he said.
The film and entertainment job industry is also feeling the pressure of AI. According to Winston Cho in his 2024 Hollywood Reporter article, a study of 300 entertainment leaders found that three-fourths of them had used AI to eliminate, reduce or consolidate jobs. The report estimates that 204,000 jobs will be impacted in the next three years. The most at-risk roles include sound engineers, voice actors, concept artists and especially entry-level positions.
Those entry-level jobs are often the starting point for students looking to break into the industry. Auburn University at Montgomery freshman, Victor Woodley, a communication and theater major, is one of them.
“Yes, I am concerned (about AI) because I’m trying to go into the movie industry,” Woodley said. “If you’ve seen the news, a lot of CEOs and companies are trying to replace workers with AI. Instead of hiring CGI artists or writers, they’re using AI to write the prompts and do the special effects. I’m kind of worried that when it’s my turn to actually do the job, I won’t be able to, because of AI.”
Despite switching careers, Nettles isn’t concerned about AI taking jobs in her new profession. However, she isn’t opposed to using it for help. As a communication specialist she is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands. Her job duties have ranged from writer, photographer, researcher and marketer, etc. So, she believes AI is okay as an “idea generator” only.
These types of conversations about technology are not new but are gaining a lot of traction because media, AI and smart devices are right at our fingertips. In 1984, Leland Miles, then president of University of Bridgeport, wrote an article titled Liberal arts in an age of technology announcing that the liberal arts are in jeopardy. He believed back in his time that “high advancement in technology will unquestionably reduce the size of the workforce.” In the article, he even mentions AT&T workers going on strike because they too feared their jobs because of technological advancements.
Just like Adrienne Nettles did in 2010, professionals are learning to pivot and change paths. Thankfully, this new role in PR is in line with her previous occupation, and in many ways, was beneficial. Although she isn’t reporting stories for the newspaper, she’s still involved in her community making an impact by helping students right here at AUM.
When asked what advice she would give to any college student, she said, “Never stop learning. Never stop, never stop developing different skill sets, whether taking a course, (getting) a certificate or doing freelance writing, or just keep learning so that when you have to reinvent yourself, you can.”
