The disappearing cadetship : trends in entry level journalism employment 1995-2005

One of the essential and ongoing preoccupations of journalism education is the issue of graduate employment. Over the last two decades, this has been addressed from a series of perspectives including the aspirations of students undertaking tertiary journalism study (Alysen & Oakham 1996), the process of seeking employment in the profession (Pearson & Johnston 1998) the process of cadetship (Pearson 1988), what various arms of the industry look for in entry level applicants (Vine 2001, Alysen 1998), outcomes for graduates (O’Donnell 1999) and whether industry can absorb the numbers graduating from tertiary journalism courses (Patching 1996). At a wider level, this discussion could also be seen to include the intermittent arguments about the merits of tertiary journalism courses as a means of preparing journalists for the workplace and, taking it one step further, whether universities are the best places in which to incubate young journalists, a stand-off which reached its most public and vitriolic level in the ‘media wars’ of the mid-1990s