Earliest Days

Reporting to the journalism advisory committee on the course’s second year, 1977-8, the Director of Journalism Studies, Tom Welsh, said that journalism at The City University had amply fulfilled the prediction made the previous year that it was poised to move forward. Progress had been rapid, and the centre continued to gather momentum.

His report recounted, among other developments, the appointment of the course’s first honorary visiting professor and its third lecturer in journalism, a great increase in support for students on the course from public bodies, and links between the course and other institutions at home and abroad.

The centre had received 430 applications for the 1978-9 course, compared with 230 the previous year and 130 in the first year. Ninety were interviewed, and 27 students secured places.

It appeared that all those students would be supported either by industry or by public funds, and the committee might think this was a remarkable situation at a time when money was so scarce. The centre’s normal bursary support from the Department of Education and Science was increased from six places in 1977 to ten in the current year and in August an additional seven students received bursaries. This total of 17, compared with the two bursaries made available to the course in its first year, seemed to suggest a most encouraging confidence on the part of the Department. Another encouraging development was the award of places by the Training Services Agency. Such places were awarded, in suitable cases, to students aged over 27, and the centre was happy to have such people because it found that older students could be highly motivated. They did not appear to find any particular difficulty in obtaining reporting jobs.

The Financial Times made a £1,000 donation to the centre’s bursary find, and the centre continued to receive welcome support from The Times and Reuters.

During the previous two years, the centre had had to work hard to arrange attachments with newspapers for all students at Christmas and Easter. A development which it was hoped would bring about a significant improvement in this respect was a new “key activity” grant announced for 1978-9 by the Printing and Publishing Industry Training Board, which would benefit employers offering attachments to City students and those from University College, Cardiff. The new rule read: “Grant will be payable for the industrial training periods of students attending approved full-time courses leading to a post-graduate diploma in journalism studies.” The centre was now working with the PPITB to devise a means of putting this grant into effect.

The subjects offered on the course would be the same as the previous year. Helpful advice had been received on standards in project writing from the external examiners Sir Tom Hopkinson and Don Rowlands. The centre had made substantial changes in its methods of tackling this part of the work; and also in the acquisition of shorthand and typing skills, along the lines reported to the committee at its January meeting.

Sixteen students among the 20 accepted for the 1977-8 course completed it, and two others were re-sitting individual exams.

Gratifyingly, most of the “foundation” students of the 1976-7 course continued to keep in touch, attending functions arranged by the centre or calling in on their visits to London from Sheffield or Swansea to report progress.

Senior work

The centre continued to receive many inquiries from journalists wishing to come to the university to pursue, briefly, a course of academic study.  Mr Welsh recalled that, in his previous annual report, he had described the type of provision the centre could make for such applicants. “We are delighted to do so, and regard this as among our most important work.” However, this was very time-consuming work, and the number of such students the centre could take had to be limited by the ability of lecturers to cope with them.

The centre’s two occasional students in the previous year were both American newspaper journalists. Its occasional students in the coming year inlcuded a Pakistani journalist who was now teaching journalism and an American television man. They were supported by the British Council and Rotary International.

Happily, the centre had now received its first application from a British journalist wishing to attend the university for his sabbatical month, and was now working out a scheme for him.

The centre had also had very tentative discussions with a national newspaper about the provision of sabbatical courses for its staff, and included with this report, as Appendix 1, was a copy of the paper produced in the centre, which it would like to discuss with the committee before wider dissemination.

A Master of Philosophy student was registered during the year, and the centre was talking with a number of other journalists who had promising projects in mind.

People

The centre basked in the reflected honour when the university awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters to Sir Denis Hamilton.

The centre was delighted that Harold Evans acceted the post of honorary visiting professor. Both he and Sir Denis had helped greatly with encouragement and practical support since the earliest days of journalism at the university.

The post of third lecturer in journalism had been filled by Richard Redden, financial news editor of The Guardian, and he was warmly welcomed. The centre was constantly being made aware of the increasing importance the industry attached to financial journalism, and Mr Redden would much increase its strength in this area.

The centre’s two current honorary visiting fellows were Bruce Weatherall, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and Hanna Roase, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Kent. The centre was glad to have them, and Mr Welsh said he was confident that the diploma students would benefit particularly from Mr Rose’s experience in project supervision.

Mr Welsh said: “We hope that over the years the room or rooms which house our visiting fellows and occasional students will provide a point of contact for minds involved in the kind of seminal thinking about the profession that has been lacking for so long.”

Links with other organisations

Nine students from Iowa University, led by their instructor Dick Lentz, were attending the university in a course linked with City’s pre-entry students. Iowans were taking certain parts of the pre-entry course and City students were attending Mr Lentz’s lectures on current American  journalism issues.

At Easter, there would be an exchange with the Centre de Formation et de Perfectionnement des Journalistes in Paris. Three City students would attend the CFPJ and three of their students would later return to take part in the City course. The CFPJ, an excellent centre for journalism education and training, seemed keen to expand this link, and City would like to do so if this pilot scheme was successful.

The centre had agreed to run a three-week course in August for the Commonwealth Press Union. The centre believed that the professional expertise it could now call upon, and its nearness to Fleet Street and national nstittions, would make this a valuable experience for the senior Commonwealth journalists involved. The centre had approved in principle a plan by International Press Institute to run a nine-month course for black Rhodesian journalists at the university the following year.

The centre would expect continued progress in all the fields mentioned above, but talks with various organisations, particularly the Thomson Foundation, indicated the possibility of an entirely new development in the Barbican, and this was at present being discussed with the Corporation of the City of London.

The last major building to be constructed in the Barbican had been Frobisher Crescent, and the university was negotiating use of the top two floors for its Business Studies centre. Two floors remained uncommitted, and one of these seemed an ideal site for a national centre for journalism education and training.

The Thomson Foundation, which was considering a change in direction that would involve closing its editorial study centre in Cardiff, had asked City for its views on how provision might be made at the Barbican to meet the Foundation’s needs, including residential accommodation.

City was making its submission in three parts. The committee had already received the first, and the second was attached as Appendix 2 to this report. Members would see that it included suggestions as to how the accommodation might be used, and a proposal weherby the Thomson Foundatio might be linked to the university without in any way losing its identity. The third part of the paper, costing, would be submitted to the Foundation later.

The plan provided office accommodation for the National Council for the Training of Journalists, and in discussing this proposal with the council’s director City suggested that the council might wish to base its short-course programme on the residential accommodation to be provided.

The International Press Insititue, which was at that time housed in City’s premises in St John Street, had tentatively expressed interest in a move to the new building if this were possible.

The plan opened up many exciting possibilities including, for example, combining the substantial libraries of the Thomson Foundation, the International Press Institute, and City University (the journalism section) to form a national journalism library. It was difficult to see how a better or more convenient site could be found for the establishment of a national centre. The key, as in so much else that affected journalism education and training, lay in the effective harnessing of public funds for the benefit of the profession.

The Future

Mr Welsh said:

This will be my last annual report to the committee because I shall be leaving the university at Christmas to fulfil a long-standing wish to edit the North Western Evening Mail, at Barrow-in-Furness.

Perhaps on this occasion a speculative look forward may be permitted, as well as the usual look back.

It is difficult, even for a pessimist like me, to foresee any development or combination of of developments which could now seriously affect the continued progress of journalism at the university.

Indeed, the main problem must be in selecting the best doors among the many that lie open.

I predict that, under the present vigorous leadership of the centre, journalism will in due course become a school of the university, probably having its own full-time academic staff working on such subjects as the history of the press, the law of the press, and public administration. The school will have a strong broadcasting element, will make effective provision for experienced journalists, and will carry out research into the media which has real value because it is done with genuine appreciation of the media’s role and problems.

In years to come, the school may well become a large one. Whether it does or not, I hope it will become a great one. That will depend basically on two things. One is the active interest of the profession, which will turn its back on the development of journalism education at university level only to its own cost. The second is the positive encouragement and understanding of the university, which must recognise the special needs of the profession. With this interest, and with this understanding, I believe journalism at the City University cannot fail.

Thanks

Mr Welsh concluded with personal thanks to all those who had made his own two years at the university so enjoyable.

He thanked members of the advisory committee, who had collectively given the centre helpful support and, as individuals, had never failed to respond to requests for assistance.

He thanked David Jenkins, head of the centre, for his strong support, and his colleagues Henry Clother, Harry Butler, and Brian Downie, for their hard work. He  thanked also Mary Harris, the course administrator, and Donna Fowler, the secretarial assistant.

A special word of thanks to Jeremy Tunstall, Professor of Sociology at the university, who had always taken the keenest interest in the course, and had helped Mr Welsh to chart his way through the unfamiliar seas of academic life.

He concluded:

My thanks to all the students and, finally, to the large number of people who have given help because they think journalism education and training is important and/or fun. The success of the course over the past two years would not have been possible without them.