Are Journalism Schools (J-Schools) doing enough to instill futuristic skills in the budding media professionals, asks Preeti Malhotra Surya, Head of the Department, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, JIMS Vasant Kunj II.

The dynamics of the media industry as well as media education are shifting. Journalism instills in its seekers skills that cannot be taught- observation, empathy, intelligence and curiosity to name a few. Having spent nearly three decades in pursuance of journalism, I, like every other journalist, who has been through the grind of newsroom and city/ bureau reporting can swear by the in-house training that editors impart to their mentees. True, some things cannot be taught; but there are many more things that the budding journalists are exposed to in their formative years; these are instilled by the media environments. Things such as how to sense a front page story when you see one, how to cultivate sources, how to verify facts and stack them in accordance with the behavioral metrics of the target audience, how to use digital resources to generate story leads, and how to develop news reports that stand the test of legal scrutiny. Among the many editorial folklores that I picked up during my journalistic journey, the one that stays etched on the top of my mind is “God lies in details”. The editor who instilled the eye for detail in me is no more, but his guiding spirit has always kept the sense of inquiry alive in me. Given the fact that at least four generations of journalists in free India never went to (Journalism Schools) J-schools and yet have very successfully set the benchmarks of professional excellence leads us to the question: Do we really need journalism and mass communication departments to produce industry oriented and industry ready recruits?

The answer is an emphatic -yes. We need J-schools more than ever before. One of the reasons is the uncharted waters that the media and entertainment sector is headed towards. The digital shift and the pace of it has raised serious concerns over the ethos of the digital spaces and these concerns can most certainly not be addressed by the government regulation alone.  Added to this is the financial stress unleashed by the pandemic and it is amply clear why editors, many of who are doubling up as senior executives, may not have the bandwidth to impart the kind of training that they were given in their early years. Journalistically speaking it may not be apt to carve out stories from the user generated content (except as letters to the editor), but that practice is a norm in digitized newsrooms. A story, a headline, a metadata and a visual element (image, graphic or multimedia content) must be search engine optimized to make it to the top five of analytics tally – all while sustaining the news values, which stand further refined in the digitized world. Are traditional news values relevant in the digital world? Well, the traditional news values provide a sound footing for the digital evolution. Much before the media professionals had heard of the term “newsroom analytics”, they had a clear idea on what stories can cause soaring circulations, TRPs and click throughs. Analytics have only provided an evidence to support the inferences tried and tested for decades in the real time laboratories of traditional newsrooms. Digitization, inclusive of the analytics, has at best curtailed the time lags and fast tracked the news organizations thereby enabling them to reach the desired circulation, TRPs and page view targets faster.

The real time nature and the unprecedented pace of the digitization of media has led to a misconceived perception that a factual error in a news report can be corrected on the go! The traditional news environments had no scope for such a blasphemy. Live media should not be an excuse for ingesting factual errors or for pushing propaganda as editorial content. The sense of sanctity of facts instilled in the budding journalists ensures perfection in tandem with the professional excellence that the career stream demands.

What makes Journalism schools compelling is the innovation that comes with them and the knack of the vertical to draw knowledge from the industry segment it serves. Media and Entertainment sector jointly shoulders the responsibility of grooming the next generation of media professionals, more so in the environment of skill based education. Industry reports bet big on technocrats with sound journalistic values as the future manpower for the media sector, paving way for media-technology collaborations at the university level.

The onus of imparting competency and skill based media education is on journalism schools. Research shows that there are four types of skills that can take the competency agenda forward for Journalism and Mass Communication departments- first, the cognitive ability in the students to expose themselves to new challenges; second, learners seeking critical views and treating feedback as an engine of growth; third, learning from successful journalists but not being restricted by their perspectives; and lastly, adhering to the journalistic competency standards set by the industry lobbies such as the Press Institute of India.

As on date the journalism schools and the industry bodies jointly acknowledge three very specific skillsets that every J-School graduate must possess, namely (i) a sound knowledge of journalistic ethics, law of the land and networking competence (ii) conceptual clarity and application of journalistic theories and principles and (iii) the skills to seek, process and serve information while optimally deploying information technology tools to investigate, analyze and predict. In a nut shell, J-Schools are required to prepare students for a more complex, unpredictable and uncertain industry environment.

The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, JIMS Vasant Kunj II provides the unique environment, academic rigor and industry interface to ensure smooth transition of students to successful job roles in the media and entertainment sector. The alumni from the department holding top notch positions/placed in organizations such as Tommy Hilfiger, Decathlon, Zee, India Today TV, NDTV, Google, BYJU’s, Hindustan Times, India News and Balaji Telefilms stand testimony to the success of the department and makes it one of the top journalism and mass communication college in Delhi/NCR.