Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsThe importance and meaning of the London University Diploma for Journalism coursefound that sort of discipline, even at a relatively superficial level, wasinvaluable to me later; not to become a critic.., but to know what criticalthinking was about. And to know a little bit about logic. I think it helped withmy thinking, and thinking is what it is all about in the long run. ’33Apart from the feedback given by the practical journalism staff it wouldappear that only Roger Fulford and Dr. Harrison saw the students on aregular basis, for their English Composition classes - more like tutorialswhen students had to read something they had written. The only feedbackmost students received from the other academic subjects was when theyheard their examination results, although some, obviously, had closerrelationships? 4 The ’intrinsic feature.., of personal contact between teacherand the student ’3~ was noticeably absent from the academic teaching onthe Diploma for Journalism. The extent of personal involvement ofUniversity teaching staff can be judged from Dr. Hugh Dalton’s singlereference in his diaries to his tutorship of journalism students at the LondonSchool of Economics, when he records that the University JournalismCommittee were ’rather a ragged crowd. ’36The academic teaching of the time led students then to make demandsfor ’more discussion’ and ’less irksome essay writing ’37 and Clarke was,himself, critical of university-led school examinations which were, in hiseyes, evidence of pupils’ ability to pass examinations, 38 nothing more.Journalist students’ comments on the academic teaching have describedthe lecturers’ dismissive attitude towards them, as journalism students.Hugh Gaitskell, then lecturing at University College, was one who, in laterlife, described journalism students as not worth troubling oneself over? 9 Yetacademics themselves are always ready to describe standards ofjournalism as ’deplorable. ’4°One former student who subsequently became Clarke’s assistant, JoanSkipsey, and lectured on post-war journalism courses in technical colleges,declared there was little possibility of such radical developments as’teaching economics journalistically’ by which she meant treatingcontemporary topics from the standpoint of exploring the problem, and howto write about it, journalistically. During this research I visited Americanuniversity schools of journalism where politics lecturers have employed thismethod - as did lecturers in some areas in Britain. 41 This problem is onewhich I met in grappling with the difficult task of planning post-graduatecourses in radio journalism and had to seek colleagues’ support tointroduce team teaching, on contemporary issues and institutions, whichinvolved academic and journalism lecturers relating teaching input topractical radio journalism requirements.With the extension of academic standards of research into the thenpolytechnics in England it is surprising how little importance was attachedto overcoming this ’lack of information’ about the relationship of academicand journalism teaching in the Diploma of Journalism. 42 None of thepolytechnics teaching communication or media studies thought it worththeir while to take the ’initiative in deciding the broad character of(journalism’s) educational requirements’ stating this was the role of the,43’profession itself and/or the industry yet they saw their media degrees asproviding ’career outlets into journalism. ’44 The subject was not a priority for192MOD100051363