Behind The News? What about the cadets behind the newsgathering?

Amid the anarchy and mud-slinging of the recent ABC budget cuts, a stealth-like blow has been dealt to this nation's aspiring young journalists.

While a war has been waged on the controversial axing of the children's show Behind The News, the equally valuable cadet program has been unceremoniously dumped.

By dropping this training program the ABC has adopted the same hopeless mindset as the commercial networks; a vicious, regressive mindset that says to today's hopeful graduates: "No, we don't want you".

In an industry that offers few, if any, entry-level positions, the ABC was widely recognised as the final pillar of hope for students planning a career in broadcast journalism; an area where commercial broadcasters have traditionally contributed little.

Axing the program will save the broadcaster a modest $530,000 a year, a paltry return considered within an overall budget of around $740 million. The decision is made even less palatable by reports that a further $90 million in taxpayers' money will be poured into ABC's Asia Pacific channel - watched mainly by expats and holiday-makers in the Pacific.

Harry Dylon, acting coordinator of journalism at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, is one of many academics lamenting the loss of the valuable program.

"It is a fairly small amount of money to be saving to scrap something very, very important for the sake of $0.53 million, which in ABC terms doesn't seem to be a hell of a big slice of the budget," Mr Dylon said in the wake of the cuts.

ABC cadetships were highly sought-after and offered a unique type of training. Since 2001 the ABC has employed 18 cadets nationally, who have been trained as journalists for both radio and television news. Last year there were more than 800 applicants.

Which raises the question: why has it now ditched them?

On the face of it, the decision appears largely budgetary. The ABC Group Audit on National Training (2000) reports that the average training investment per ABC employee for the 1999/2000 financial year was $912. This represents an investment in training of 1.4 per cent of salary.

But the ABC's own inquiry in 2002 found that, among other benefits, ABC training in areas of media production and broadcasting "provides efficient return on the dollar investment in training".

The ABC even has a project-planning system that sets out costs for each training project, "so that delegates can make a judgement on the value for money before approving expenditure".

With this in mind, it is hard to understand why the national broadcaster has opted to neglect thousands of burgeoning young journos. Even Kathy Bowlen, presenter of ABC's Stateline (Victoria), concedes it "bodes very ill for journalism when our national broadcaster is essentially doing no training".

And Christopher Warren, secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), said the move to cut the cadet program would see the ABC "forced eat its own future".

In essence, the move reflects a calculated neglect of the younger generation. After failing to secure extra funding in this year's federal budget, the ABC has shown a preparedness to sacrifice the interests of young Australians in order to strike back at the coalition.

In reality, journalism needs young blood more than ever. A 2001 ABS Labour Force Survey found that 58.2 per cent of working journalists are aged 35 years or older. It also showed that no journalists are employed between the ages of 15 and 19, compared with 7.3 per cent of all other occupations.

This highlights a big problem: news outlets are doing little about the problem of an ageing workforce, despite being desperate to attract younger audiences.

Perhaps this is why Colin McKinnon, editorial training manager at The Age in Melbourne, suggested "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" be trawled across the entrance of a recent journalism seminar, organised by the MEAA.

Allan Russel, Chief of Staff at Network Ten, spoke to around 100 final-year media students at the seminar and put this sentiment in simpler terms: "Do we (broadcast) want you (graduates) at all? The answer is no. And the ABC has shown that this week".

In the wake of the cuts, ABC managing director Russell Balding has been just as callous. In an interview for ABC radio in Adelaide, Balding practically dismissed the issue by citing a lack of government funding.

"…I didn't want to close our cadet journalist intake program," Balding said. "I think the bigger issue here is the question of whether or not the ABC is adequately funded … And I definitely don't believe the ABC is adequately funded."

But Liberal Senator Santo Santoro accused the ABC of "crying poor".

"They're doing very well, when it comes down to it," he said. "They really should be looking closely at their spending priorities."

Instead of denying young Australians the opportunity to lead journalism into the future, the ABC should make cuts to more expendable areas, such as light entertainment. Indeed, the ABC has been criticised for its fanatical loyalty to Glass House - a loyalty not shared by any significant number of viewers.

A revision of the ABC's long-standing policy against advertising has also been flagged as a funding alternative.

The ABC should bow its head in the wake of this unfeeling decision. As "our" national broadcaster the ABC has an altruistic obligation to emerging journalists.

It must not let political grandstanding meddle with this charter.