Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsThe University of London Diploma for Journalism: The Educational Background and Aims ofthe CourseChapter SixThe University of London Diploma for Journalism: The EducationalBackground and Aims of the CourseThe nine-year gap, between drawing up the journalism syllabus by theInstitute of Journalists and the University of London and its implementationin 1919, was due mainly to the interruption of the First World War. Mostprofessional associations agreeing syllabuses before 1910 did not seethem in operation until 1919, at the earliest. 1Between 1909 and 1913 London University had been investigated by aRoyal Commission chaired by Lord Haldane. 2 This had been set upbecause of the desire to have a teaching, as opposed to an examining,university in London. Previous Commissions, Selborne in 1888 andGresham in 1892, had tried to overcome the imbalance between theteaching colleges and the examining university.The Final Report is a very comprehensive survey of how universityeducation was viewed at the turn of the 20 th century and, one has toremember, this was only just emerging as a force outside the olderuniversities of Cambridge, Durham, Oxford and the Scottish seats oflearning. Indeed in 1910, the universities outside that charmed circle,supported by Government funds, boasted a total of 370 Bachelors of Arts,with Wales adding another 94.At a conference in 1919 representatives of London University, 3 theInstitute of Journalists, the Board of Education and the Ministry of Labourappointments branch agreed a two-year course of study in any four of theseven branches of knowledge (see Appendix Xa), leaving out instruction orpractice in the technical side of journalism e.g. shorthand, type-writing orpress-correction (see appendix Xb). Lectures would be provided by thevarious constituent colleges, in their ordinary curricula for degree students,but there would be supplementary courses, including composition, generalcriticism and the history of journalism, as long as these did not interferewith the academic studies. As Mr F.J. Mansfield pointed out, on May 6 t",1919, when writing to complain about the course description as a ’Diplomain Journalism’, the diploma ’could well be taken by persons not intending toadopt journalism as a profession’. So the title became ’Diploma forJournalism. ’4The willingness of the University of London to house an experimentalcourse in journalism matched the mood of the Haldane Report; when it68MOD100051239