A student entering IMII steps into a newsroom, not a lecture room, and starts working as a journalist from Day One. The emphasis is on learning by doing: The faculty, both Indian and international, work as editors and mentors, rather than as lecturers.

This cutting-edge journalism program will produce professional journalists who can research and write stories to international standards, shoot video and record audio, and send it out to cell phones or put it all together on a web page in real time.

A news service run by the school will feature the work of the best student journalists, ensuring students work to professional standards. A core requirement of the course will be competence in multimedia for all class assignments, creating a real-time newsroom atmosphere as well as preparing students for the emerging media of the future. Every student will be assigned a laptop computer to use during the school year. Video cameras, digital recorders and other electronic equipment will be available for assignments as required.

The metropolis of Delhi will be the living laboratory for IMII, preparing students for assignments on different beats. To ensure graduates meet international standards, the curriculum has been developed in association with the Graduate School of Journalism of the City University of New York. For example, CUNY’s Craft of Journalism course will be central to IMII’s program. Students will be trained to research, report and present their stories across formats, regardless of the media in which they choose to work.

A unique feature of the training is a course in Citizen Journalism that will train students to produce stories using public participation and social networks and to work with citizen journalists. They will experiment with mobile phone technologies, blogs and social networking sites, as media innovators. Other core courses will include in-depth reporting on a chosen subject, ethics, media law and editing and production. A choice of beat specializations, ranging from business and international to sports and entertainment, will be offered as electives.

Another innovative component of the IMII program will be assigning student-journalists to cover a poor neighborhood of the capital in association with an NGO, so that they gain experience and expertise in working with the majority of the Indian population in real world conditions.

Students who successfully complete the one-year program will be equipped with the tools to cover all sorts of stories, from the mundane to the complex, utilizing all media platforms. Ready, in short, to work as top-quality journalists from Day One.