Exhibit JC42 - The Leveson Inquiry

For Distribution to CPsHacks and Dons - Teaching at the London University Journalism School 1919-1939: Its origin,development and influence.Diploma for Journalism established by the University he felt considerabletime was wasted on the internal Diploma repairing defects that would nothave been there had Matriculation been a condition of entry to the full-timediploma: ’Nothing is ever gained by cheapening degrees or diplomas.., andI do not like to feel that London is offering a soft option at a time whenOxford and Cambridg,e honours graduates were entering the profession inincreasing numbers. ’°’The chairman of the Journalism Committee, Mr. Knapp, formed anothersub-committee with Mr. Davies of the Newspaper Society and Mr.Richardson of the N.U.J. together with Mr. Peaker, who was also on theCommittee, but they were unable to take it any further and recommendedno further action in the matter? aWith that out of the way the Journalism Committee then turned to reexaminingthe journalism curriculum, relating this very specifically to theneed to appoint a full-time Director of the Course for Journalism, in the lightof the impending resignation of Mr. Knapp from the chairmanship of theCommittee.With the arrival as Chairman of the Journalism Committee of Colonel G.F. Lawson (later 4 t" Baron Burnham, 1890-1961), of the Daily Telegraph, inOctober 1932, there appears to have been a determination to tackle thedesign of the course afresh.Mr. Knapp’s Valedictory ReportMr. Knapp’s ’Short Histories of Journalism Students’ included a twelvepagetypescript culled from letters sent to him by ex-journalism students.Although names, and newspapers on which they were working, weredeleted from the paper it is possible, by cross-reference to the ’Histories’, tosee that Stanley Ellis (1927-28) was on the Manchester Evening News assports sub-editor and writer, after first working on the Lancashire EveningPost between 1928 and 1930. Out of the twenty correspondents sevenspecifically mention Mr. Mansfield’s lectures on practical journalism held inthe second year of the course and four mentioned Mr Hawke’s first-yearpractical lectures; these former students were working on papers asdifferent as the Huddersfield Examiner and the London Daily Telegraphand Daily Express? 9These comments on the course, from former students, were presentedto the Committee when it considered plans for improving the practical sideof the course, and pointed to the need for their being someone in authoritywho would control the practical journalism side. All the former students laidspecial stress on the practical sessions under Messrs Hawke andMansfield, calling for further developments along these lines. They alsoappreciated the way the course, in its general knowledge training, gavethem a broader outlook on most matters. One who had gone straight ontothe Daily Mirror in August 1927, as a reporter (E.R.C. Lintott) stated thatthe history course had been the most valuable, although he said he shouldhave paid more attention to the methods of procedure of the governmentsof foreign countries. Even though employed as a caption writer he stillthought that: ’a thorough knowledge of the workings of the Reichstag, the8!MOD100051252