There is consternation among the troops and their middle level commanders at Fairfax this week over an edict from the boss of the company’s newspapers, Brian McCarthy, preventing the placing of advertisements recruiting editorial trainees for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

The ads were due to run last Saturday, but I understand that McCarthy ordered they be withdrawn and instructed management at the mastheads to put together a “business case” for the employment of trainees. The editors are not pleased, and nor are the staff.

Meanwhile the news is likely to strike despair into the hearts of the many young hopefuls now in the final stages of their communications and journalism degrees, or gaining experience in the lower levels of the industry.

It’s a fairly extraordinary move. In his previous life as head of Rural Press, McCarthy always claimed to be proud of the training the company had in place – and asserted that he would never cut it back. What’s happened now? Or is he just trying to make a point by demanding the business plan before going ahead?

The two mastheads normally put on between three and eight trainees each – hardly an enormous number, given that they are among the biggest employers of journalists in the country.

Louise Connor, Victorian Branch Secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, says staff are hopeful that “reason will prevail”.

There is a big issue at stake, she says. If big Australian companies refuse to train then they contribute to skill shortages.

“In media, the big companies who have been allowed to dominate the market also have a responsibility to the industry and the country. Training is central,” she said.

Fairfax’s Editorial Learning and Development Manager, Colin McKinnon, has not returned a call from Crikey but he must surely be wondering whether a side effect of McCarthy’s move will be a dangerously reduced workload.

Meanwhile the business case is being worked on. It shouldn’t be too hard. Trainees are quite simply the future of the company.

Media is going through unprecedented change. Surely one of the best ways of handling it is to hire the best young people that can be found, and then watch them change the organisation from within.