Does the Lovable Larrikin Live? A comparative Analysis of Australian Journalism Culture 1974 and 2003

Many professions have a mythical figure who defines its cultural values and beliefs: for nursing it's Florence Nightingale; for theatre, Shakespeare. Australian journalism too has its myth - that of the hard-working, hard-drinking, defiant loable larikin. But recently there have been complaints related to the larrikin's disappearance from Australian journalism, paticularly its youth culture. The following paper compares comments from 10 people who were young journalists in 1974 with comments from young journalists in 2003, in an analysis of larrikinism in Australian journalism culture in the two eras.