Tom Welsh: A champion of press freedom

Tom Welsh and Harry Butler at City University

The Guardian has published my obituary on Tom Welsh, who was head of the first City University journalism course in 1976, on which I was a student.

Tom is best known to most journalists as co-editor of Essential Law for Journalists and was a champion of press freedom. He was also a great champion of his students and was a mentor and friend to us throughout our careers. We will miss him very much.

• Eric Gordon, editor of the Camden New Journal, who worked for Tom as a news editor, has written an obit in the CNJ which you can read here.  He describes Tom as "a fine liberal journalist of the old school with a guiding steely conviction that newspapers must always be prepared to hold authority to account."