Mentoring and Australian journalism

Mockros (1996) noted that a lack of senior staff in an organisation could mean mentoring was unavailable, hindering this valuable avenue for learning. Mockros's comment is significant for journalism in Australia because of the number of job losses in the industry, including senior editorial staff. An important question arises from this reduction in senior staff: what will happen to mentoring in journalism? This article discusses findings from a research project that examined the creative practices of journalists and found that mentoring is an important way journalists learn how to do journalism and become journalists. It concludes that having fewer senior staff available for mentoring is an emerging problem that could affect journalism practice.