The Press Association has cancelled its multimedia graduate training scheme due to commence this summer.

Aimed at graduates with a journalism qualification, the three-year programme is a paid scheme offering trainees the chance to learn on-the-job skills and work across a range of PA's departments.

A spokeswoman for PA said that the agency remained committed to running the programme again in the future but at present she could not specify when that might be.

She said: "In light of the current pressures being felt by the media industry, the Press Association has taken the decision not to recruit any new entrants to its in-house multimedia journalist training scheme for summer 2009.

"We remain committed to the scheme which has trained 143 journalists over the past 15 years and there are still currently 16 trainees at various stages of the three-year programme.

"The production journalist training scheme will proceed as planned."

The foundation and diploma courses run by Press Association Training are unaffected by this decision, as are trainees part-way through schemes.