Cadet Journalist

The newsroom and spotlight made being a journalist look like big stories and bigger speeches. The reality is closer to a 23-year-old cadet at the local council meeting, taking notes on a planning application until 10 at night, then filing the story for the next morning. Most newsroom cadet ships in Australia now require a degree in journalism or communications. The cadet ship runs under the Journalists' Published Media Award, which defines the cadet as someone constantly or regularly in training for journalism, press photography or editorial art. The cadet must be fully and thoroughly taught in the office in which they work. Nongraduate cadet ships run for about three years. Graduate cadet ships are shorter.