Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsThe University of London Diploma for Journalism" The Educational Background and Aims ofthe Coursehe was quoting above. If, however, the Diploma was not giving them morecompetent recruits, they should say so and the University would do theirbest to improve it. Dr. Harrison also expressed the opinion that a largeproportion of what was called English Literature was also Englishjournalism, just as the history of the press played such an important part inthe development of English political freedom. For these reasons Harrisonthought it was worth the newspaper industry endowing a chair in the historyof the Press. He also ventured that any newspaper doing this would gainenormous prestige over its rivals by putting up capital to found a Universitychair, or by establishing scholarships to enable children of registeredreaders to go to the University.Returning to the revised syllabus proposed by the University he felt itwould be more appropriate for journalism students to study the modernworld from the French Revolution to the present, rather than theconstitutional problems of Tudor Settlement. The same could be said of thecourse on which Hugh Gaitskell lectured: ’Social and Economic Structure ofToday.’ Because the Honours School of English Literature at LondonUniversity in 1935 did not study English literature beyond 1875 theJournalism Committee had to provide special courses in the literature since1850.Since the underlying purpose for the revision of the syllabus was thedesire to introduce students to the study of the modern world that canreasonably be covered in two years, it needed money to do it properly as’students cost twice as much as they pay in fees’ and London Universitywas not well endowed with private funds ’unlike the two older universities’.’... herein lies a great opportunity if the profession of journalism believes ineducation, and is prepared to put up the necessary capital to endowprofessors, readers and lecturers to teach, and scholarship for its ownchosen candidates, then it could have all it wanted.’Until this was achieved Harrison said the Diploma for Journalism wouldnever receive the priority it needed while it was regarded as somethingexisting staff devoted as ’much time as... our honours work’ allowed. Theinference being that the financial basis of the course was still as precarious,and makeshift, as when it started as ’an emergency’ after the First WorldWar: ’with little special attention.., given to the students.’Harrison saw the next five years, up to 1939, as a last chance for theDiploma to prove itself, or disappear. He stated, that with Clarke’sappointment, the course was beginning a five-year experimental periodwhich would either mark a new stage in the development of Englishjournalism or else see the end of the Diploma. It would be a newexperience for Clarke, and not the least important of the posts he wouldhave held, but he would need incredible patience, for it was easier to movea dead elephant than an academic body, although while it only took theacademics three months to redesign the syllabus, it had taken three yearsbefore the Journalism Committee had been in a position to invite Mr. Clarketo become Director.In his address to the 1935 conference of the Institute of Journalists Dr.Harrison referred to the need of newspaper money to endow the Diploma88MOD100051259