David Chipp

David Allan Chipp (6 June 1927 – 10 September 2008) was a British journalist and author. He was a former editor-in-chief of Reuters and the Press Association, and a founding member of the Press Complaints Commission. Chipp was the first resident correspondent for the Reuters news service in China after the communist takeover in 1949, and was based in Beijing from 1956 to 1958.

Chipp was born at Kew Gardens, where his father was an assistant keeper. He attended Malvern College and whilst vising an uncle in Malaya war was declared, so he carried on his education at Geelong Grammar School in Corio, Victoria, Australia. Aged seventeen he returned to Great Britain and in 1944 enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment, he served in the regiment for three years. In 1947 Chipp was demobilised after attaining the rank of Captain. He then went on to attend King's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in history and was captain of college boats

In 1947 Chipp joined Reuters as a temporary sports sub-editor. Later he was sent to Rangoon, Burma to open a new Reuters bureau there.
1956 saw Chipp sent to Peking where at the time he was the first non-communist reporter to be based there. He was later to write a memoir of his experiences in Peking entitled The Day I Stepped on Mao's Toes. The title refers to an incident when Chipp inadvertently backed on to Mao Zedong's feet at a reception.

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