1. Australian Journalism Standards

3. Background to the project:
$120,000 Australian Government grant to explore the extent to which Australian media organisations as the major employers of our graduates understand:
(1) what it is that universities teach in their journalism programs; and
(2) The differences between the various programs on offer.
As part of our study we interviewed a range of senior editors and journalists (those responsible for employing graduates), as well as a number of senior journalism educators (those primarily responsible for designing and/or managing the journalism degree programs).

4. The Results:
That key industry people had little knowledge or understanding of what was being taught at the various universities;
That journalism educators had a reasonably strong understanding of their own programs, but little understanding of what the competitors were teaching;
That there was a wide disparity between offerings, both in terms of the number of subjects taught, and the content of individual subjects; and
Despite this, all programs claimed to provide graduates with the skills required to enter Journalism ‘job-ready’.

9. Contact details.
Via the website: or
Professor Stephen Tanner,
School of The Arts, English and Media,
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts,
Wollongong University.