‘I am not aware of any training or education that’s been done.’ ‘There’s no specific training. We always try to be sensitive in covering all issues but there’s no training or education internally.’ ‘There is zero training and education on ageing and ageism [in our newsroom]. There is with cultural diversity and gender, but there is nothing equivalent with ageing and ageism.’ ‘No, never.’ It was noted by some respondents that in the past, any void of formal internal training was filled by informal instruction from older and more experienced journalists and producers. ‘I’ve worked at several organisations and bureaus over 20 years and there’s never been any formal training or education but there’s always been informal instruction from older more experienced colleagues. Inside the media industry a whole generation of older journalists in newsrooms have been wiped out by redundancies because they were on higher incomes and media organisations are all looking to cut costs and replace higher paid journalists with younger, less well-paid journalists. So younger journalists do not learn by watching anymore and that’s a huge loss with massive long-term consequences. COVID and working from home has really intensified that.’ ‘There was a time when the training was actually learning on the job from experienced journos around you. You’d pick things up by listening to them or they’d politely, or sometimes impolitely, let you know if you were doing something wrong. That’s not really the case anymore.’ (d) Other underlying drivers of negative media portrayals The interviewees stated that while their primary audience is typically older people, appealing to younger audiences is seen as crucial for the sustainability of their media organisation. ‘I am mindful that in traditional media we are writing to a mostly older audience but also at the same time we are trying to appeal to a younger audience that might become subscribers. So that thought is in the background all the time.’ ‘Newsrooms are obsessed with engaging younger audiences to survive, and I think in the rush to appeal to a younger audience we can be guilty of not getting the balance right.’ Qualitative interviews 27