Generation next upholds grand journalism tradition

The Australian is again upholding the great newspaper tradition of hiring cadets — five young men and women brimming with enthusiasm and eager to make their mark at the national daily.

The new breed: The Australian’s cadets Ellie Dudley, left, Jess Malcolm, Rhiannon Down and Joseph Lam. Picture: Jane Dempster

Defying gloomy predictions for the future of journalism, The Australian is again upholding the great newspaper tradition of hiring cadets — five young men and women brimming with enthusiasm and eager to make their mark at the national daily.

Rhiannon Down and Nicholas Jensen join The Australian from Victoria, Ellie Dudley and Jess Malcolm from NSW and ­Joseph Lam from Queensland, all chosen from a national search that prompted hundreds of appli­cations.

Each brings a unique perspective and experience to the year-long cadetship, which began on Monday with a week of presen­tations from The Australian’s top editors and writers.

Editor-in-chief Christopher Dore congratulated the cadets on making it through the selection process to win a coveted position at the newspaper, saying the standard of candidates over the past two years had been exceptional.

Dore said it was always exciting to welcome new young journalists to The Australian, having started at the newspaper himself as a cadet. “There are so many of us here in senior positions, including editor Michelle Gunn, who started out as young reporters on The Australian and have forged impressive careers in journalism.

“It is an incredible opportunity to begin your career here working alongside the best collection of journalists in the country, learning from the best, but also bringing the energy and ideas of a new generation into what is already the most exciting news organisation in Australia.

“We have come a long way, and so too has The Australian, which has grown into the No 1 subscriber news site and the most influential and trusted newspaper in Australia with a larger audience now than at any time in our history.”

All the cadets have some previous experience in the media. Down from Melbourne comes to The Australian after a year as an editorial assistant at the Herald Sun. She has worked in regional TV newsrooms and has a BA from Melbourne University and a graduate diploma in journalism from RMIT.

“I’m really thrilled to have been offered a cadetship in a newsroom with many of Australia’s best journalists to learn from,” Down said.

Malcolm, originally from Sydney, has been living in Melbourne for the past seven years, and most recently was working for the Sunraysia Daily in Mildura. She has a masters in journalism and a BA in politics, both from the University of Melbourne. “I’m really excited to be joining the national masthead, a paper that has cemented itself in our country’s history and I look forward to being part of its next generation of reporters,” she said.

Jensen, from Victoria, completed his masters in history at Oxford University. He has been working at an executive search consultancy in Britain and is looking forward to getting back to Australia to meet his new colleagues. “I’m excited to join The Australian at such a crucial time in the country’s history, especially when permanent roles in journalism are so few,” he said.

“I look forward to learning from the publication’s seasoned editors and reporters.”

Lam joins the cadet program after a year on The Australian’s digital desk as a digital news producer. He has worked as a contributing feature writer for the South China Morning Post and completed a bachelor of journalism at the Queensland University of Technology.

“After a year on the digital desk, I’m looking forward to picking up some shoe-leather journalism experience and hopefully telling a great story or two,” he said.

Dudley has come from working as a business and economics journalist with small publisher Dynamic Business.

She graduated with a bachelor of media and communications from the University of Sydney last week.

“I am looking forward to writing alongside award-winning journalists and editors, widening the breadth of my news coverage and contributing to Australia’s biggest masthead,” she said.