Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsEditorial Attitudes Towards News Reporting Revealed in Clarke’s Lecture Noteswhich national paper they read. This was because he saw one of the firstduties of journalists was to keep in close and regular touch with themainstream news: ’The Bi9 Things,’ as Clarke described them, thatreporters had to keep in touch with because they were their modern historywhich they could only 9et from newspapers. Since reporters could be sentout at any moment to talk with people or report meetings they had to beaware of the hi9 news topics of the day. 6 There was another dimension tothis reading: that of selectin9 ideas to ’follow-up’ because the reporter whobrought in such ideas was the one who progressed. Clarke then made thestudents provide six such ’follow-up’ ideas from their newspapers by theend of the lecture.Clarke’s advice to students at his early lectures was to tell them that theyhad to assume they had become junior reporters on the staff of a dailypaper and that he required them to accept the discipline they would have toaccept if they had a job on a newspaper. This meant they had to be ontime. ’You must be on time here, or, (as in a newspapers office) you will besacked.’ That succinctly states Clarke’s attitude, and it must have sunkhome, as the files are full of letters, and telegrams, apologizin9 for absencefrom lectures. (See p. 110)Unlike the professor of English who would not tell the Diploma studentswhat to write (because no journalist would be told what to write) Clarke onthe other hand pointed out that, as reporters, they would often be sent outto report certain things the value of which had boon decided beforehand, bytheir news editors; whether fires, exhibitions or interviews. Although thenews editor made the initial news value judgement to cover the incident,say a fire, they would still have to assess its newsworthiness, based on itsdegree of ’unusualness’ or ’human interest’, in terms of lives lost or, if awell-known person was amen9 these, it thereby took on a higher newsvalue. The fledglin9 reporter would also soon learn that, in terms of newsvalues, a fire in a West-End store had more appeal than a fire in aBermondsey leather factory. Whatever the incident, reporters always had toask themselves three ,questions of any story: ’Is it true? Is it important? Is itinteresting?’Clarke warned the students that very often, as youn9 reporters, theywould find it hard to answer objectively at least the two last questions: ’Youwill have umpteen facts and, knowin9 that lots of other stories arecompeting with yours for sub-editorial approval, you will bewilder yourselfwonderin9 what to put in and what to leave out. Although I stress the needfor brevity and terseness in reporting, I would say this to the youn9 reporterin such a quandary:- Of the two evils - writin9 too little or too much - writetoo much (and apologise to the sub for doin9 so) explainin9 your quandary.Flatter him by tellin9 him you want his advice. He’ll curse you outwardly butsecretly he’ll admire your judgement.’Reportin9 speeches caused problems because they were ten timeslonger than reported and Clarke advised students to watch for topic points,which they would have to prepare for by readin 9 up about their man, andhis subject, before they went to the meetin 9. One further piece of advice toreporters was always to think ’yours is THE story of the today. Often you’llmake it so.’122MOD100051293