Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsThe University of London Diploma for Journalism: The Educational Background and Aims ofthe Coursewelcomed the training of between twenty and thirty men and consideredsuch numbers excessive. Board officials expressed the view that theeducational standard of many of the applicants was poor and that theywould not be up to taking an ordinary degree. 14The University saw this scheme as an ’extension of University teaching’and, as such, able to recruit onto it non-matriculated persons: those whohad not passed Matriculation, regarded as the necessary qualifyingexamination for those seeking degree status. Many entered universityeducation this way who, otherwise would not have received a universityeducation and this could have been one reason for the five-fold increase inanticipated enrolments. Students themselves described how quite anumber were using the course to fill in time while waiting for proposals ofmarriage, or were ’eternal’ students who had got a degree and could notbear to leave the academic world. TM On this last point it has to be noted thata special dispensation allowed graduates (until 1937) to sit for the Diplomaafter one year, which three did in July, 1920 and one of two who passedwas Miss Muriel Jaeger.In those early days of the course there appeared to be no one personresponsible for the journalistic endeavours that might fill ’intervals in thecourse’ but someone on the Journalism Committee reported that theSpeaker of the House of Commons had generously agreed to admitjournalism students to debates. TMVarious reports mention the student publication New Journalist,subsidised by the Secretary of the Institute of Journalists, Herbert Cornish,but these do no mention it beyond 1920. ~v The first Report of theJournalism Committee also mentions that Miss C. Spurgeon (1869-1942)was allocated £30 for ten lectures on ’The Art of Writing’ and Mr. ThomasSeccombe (1866-1923) £120 for 24 lectures at East London College on the’History of Journalism’. There were four other colleges accepting studentsfor the Journalism Diploma: Bedford, King’s, London School of Economics,and University College, and each appointed a tutor for journalism studentsand, by meeting three times each term hoped to ’ensure that all studentsdevote an aspproximately uniform amount of time each week to their courseof training.Injecting Journalism into the courseIn the first two years, 1919-21, the journalism side of the courseconsisted of quarterly lectures from shining stars of contemporaryjournalism: Sir Philip Gibbs, Sir Robert Donald, J.L. Garvin and HartleyWithers (editor of The Economist). After 1920 second-year Journalismstudents received more practical instruction with the introduction of acourse of lectures entitled ’The General Principles of Writing for the Press’given by Mr. E.G. Hawke, M.A., of The Spectator and Daily Telegraph forwhich he received £120 during the academic year 1921/2. He also receiveda similar sum for lectures on the history of journalism, even though anearlier minute had noted that these lectures were to be deleted oneconomy grounds. ~9 To make up for the lack of practical instruction Mr.72MOD100051243