These modules are designed to train the students into capable young journalists , ready to perform confidently in any newsroom.

Reporting

What is News ? –Qualities of news – News Value – Sources of News – Unexpected sources of news – Nose for News – Qualities of a Reporter – What is Reporting – General Reporting – Beat – Off beat – Investigative Reporting – Reporting Disasters, Election, Assembly and Parliament – Court and Crime Reporting – News Agencies – Press conferences – Meet the press – Public meeting – Speech – Local News – Reporting Cultural events – Reporting Sports – Business Reporting – Science and Environmental Reporting – Agriculture Reporting – Developmental Reporting – Photo Journalism – Interviews.

Editorial Practices

The desk – Concept – Active Newsroom- Structure of News Story – Intro – Inverted Pyramid -General Principles in Editing – Copy preparation – Headlines – Layout – Photographs in the page – Captions – Style book – The Advt. factor – AIDA.

Feature – Various types – Human interest stories – Leader writing – Articles – Middle piece -Column writing – Week End editions and Pull outs of Newspapers. Magazine Journalism – Different kinds of Magazines – Planning and Editing – Magazine cover.

Mass Communication

Communication – Introduction – Definition- Scope and function – Role of mass media. Evolution of Press, Radio, Television and Film – Advertisement. History of World Journalism – History of Indian Journalism – History of Malayalam Journalism.

Ethics and Press Law

Salient features of Indian Constitution – History of Press Regualtion – Freedom of Press – How Judiciary functions – Jurisdiction of Courts – Court Procedure – How Police functions – Police Procedure -Defamation – Libel and slander – Contempt of Court – Children Act – PRB Act- Constitution and the Press – Press Council – Right to Information.- Ethics in journalism – Social commitment of Journalists – Media and Human rights – Citizen Journalism.

 Public Relations and Advertising

Introduction to PR – Principles of PR – PR in modern society – Methods and tools – PR and the media – Press releases – Press Conference. PR in Government – How Govt. functions – Government and Press – Public opinion – Organisations of Government PR – PR in companies – Image building, Crisis Management. Introduction to Advertisement – Social impact – Advertisement in print media – Advertisement for Radio and TV – Copy writing – Brand Equity.

Online Journalism and Technical Writing

Introduction to internet – History – World Wide Web – Portal, Vortal – On-line Edition of Newspapers – Search Engines – E-Commerce – Writing for the Web – New media – Hyper text – Key Component for Internet Journalism – Design of Web page – Convergence on the internet – Legal issues; on-line law . Technical Writing – Introduction – Principles – style – writing process – Planning – Technical editing – Mobile Journalism – Design and lay out.

Fundamentals of Good Writing

Grammar – Sentence construction – Use of language – Organization of matter and language -Journalistic Language – Difference between news paper language and individual style – Tight writing- Vocabulary -Correct words and simple grammar – figurative writing -Translation- (Malayalam, English)

Broadcast and TV Journalism

Introduction to TV Journalism : Evolution and history of TV Journalism – working pattern of a journalist inside a News Channel – Working tools – Scripting for TV News – Different formats of TV

• News stories – Hard news – Soft and offbeat stories – ‘write to visual’ norms.
• Live telecasting : appearing live on-the-spot – reporting facing the camera – tragedy scenes -mammoth meetings – Presenting news live – Rundown live news bulletins – Interviews – Conversational broadcast – programme production.

Technics and Skills of Visual Media Journalist

Camera skills – Different types of shots and frames – Handling a camera/Assigning a camera person – Planning a shot – Editing and production – Fundamentals of good visual editing – Basics of programme production – Usage of effects – mixing and graphical support.

Documentary : Evolution – Basic elements of good documentaries – Different forms of treatment.

Computer Applications

Computer Fundamentals – Windows – Composing (English and Malayalam) – Internet – Editing on-line – PageMaker – Pagination – Introduction to Photoshop.

Current Affairs

Examination on this paper will be based on guest lectures delivered on all subjects, issues that boiled in the media during the academic year, topics of seminar presented, subjects discussed in the class and news analysis session.

The success of a professional course very much depends on how much practical the programme is.Theoretical foundation laid in the classrooms is to be strengthened by real –time practical programmes which adds experience value to the course. That is why ICJ gives top priority to practical learning programmes.

News Analysis

News Analysis programme is an invariably regular exercise of the course. Our class schedule begins with one hour long News Analysis which begins at 9.30 AM. The students are classified into various groups,and a group is assigned to lead a days discussion. They are expected to read days newspaper, watch the TV and listen AIR morning bullettin before coming to the class , with an analytical mind. The students discuss the news , dissecting it according to news values & qualities and its presentation. The exercise is before and under the guidance of a senior journalist.

This exercise leads the students smoothly to the world of news. It widens the students horizon of general awareness and enhances presentation skills. Performance of students at the programme is graded and recorded.

 Lab journals

Lab journals are the part of weekly exercises of students. Each of the student is required to collect,report, compose and edit various happenings around them and the current world.A weekly lab journal is brought out by a group of students comprising six or seven members. For each lab journal an editor is elected by group members. He/She will be in-charge of the lab journal. Student groups are assigned to print one lab journal every week which should contain atleast 6 pages. and will be exibited in the institute’s notice board. The lab journal is in the pattern of a daily newspaper.

Lab journal of a group will be critically analised by the following group members which helps students to develop various skills of reporting , news evaluating and editing. Each lab journal is also evaluated by an experienced journalist to provide an input to their internal marks. The exercise of lab journal also aims at perfecting the student’s computer typing skills and computer based page designing and aesthetics. The fully equipped computer lab work as a part of the institution with high speed internet access.

In addition to weekly lab Journal brought out by groups, each student is made to prepare a lab journal individually towards the end of the course.

Magazine

Weeklies and other periodicals constitute a large part of print media. Therefore practical training in this area becomes essential in journalistic training. Students are devided into five groups and each group is responsible for publishing atleast one magazine. There will be a group of experienced journalists evaluating the magazine assignment. Each magazine should consist minimum 48 pages. Student groups are free to select theme or topic for the respective magazine. They should carry out designing editing,layouting duties of the magazine by themselves. This assignment is designed in the concept of equipping the students in accordance with the varying demands of the industry.

The magazine published by the student group will be archived in the institution. Best one of them will be awarded.

Documentaries

Each student group is assigned to produce a documentary as part of their final assignment. The subject and theme of the documentary is independantly decided by the students. They can opt from any relevant subject around. The documentary assignment should be atleast 10 minutes duration. Experienced professional from visual media industry and various media institutions will be overseeing the process. Participating in such an assignments like documentary production , the students are actively motivated and informed about the visual media creation and basics of handling media tools like professional camera.

All the basic needs for the production of their documentary will be provided by the institution. The best documentaries will be released throughout various platforms and the institutions website.

Dissertation

Each student is required to prepare independently an academic dissertation on a topic related to any aspect of journalism and mass media. Students are to select the topic with the approval of the Director and work on it under the guidance of the faculty member concerned. Dissertation work is to assess the in-depth reporting aptitude and the talent for research of the students. Students have to submit the dissertation before 15th of January and attend a Viva voce examination based on the syllabus in general and dissertation in particular.

Visual News Bulletins

A good number of ICJ students find their employement in TV channels. As such practical training in visual news reporting, editing, presenting or anchoring is an essential part of our curriculam. Stuents have to produce 5-6 News bulletins as part of their course, so that each of the student get a chance to practice in all the avenues of visual news reporting.

Each student has to submit visual stories before the completion of his/her course.Students are free in deciding their subject. They are supposed to report atleast one hard story and one soft story (human interest story). They can utilize the resources provided by the institution or any other in shooting and editing the visuals. Throughout the assignment there will be experienced professionals from the industry supervising and assisting the students. Each of these assignments is being validated separately by eminent journalists for the purpose of providing internal marks.

The institute will award the best assignments in these categories.

Quiz Programmes

It has been said that anything under the sun is the subject matter for a journalist . He/She may have to deal with anything anytime in his/her profession. So he must have wide general awareness. Every ,media–person is expected to have some understanding about everything. This can be achieved only by keen observation and wide reading . To promote general awareness skills quiz programs are conducted at regular intervals in the institute. This enables the student to assess ones own general awareness level and the necessity to cultivate reading , observing , grasping and noting skills.

 Seminars & Debates Workshops

The political scenario of the world is ever changing. Innovations and inventions are the order of the day. As such to be at the crest of the wave is a demanding task. Continous and studius learning and discussion is essential for this. To make this possible seminars, debates and workshops are regularly and continuosly conducted and made accessible for the students. Students are made to present subjects on various and diverse topics at seminars. Beside they are facilitated to participate various academic programmes around

Internship

Students are required to be exposed before the real world of news. So they can experience the contrast between actual practice with classroom instruction. For this, after the final examination each student has to undergo one month internship in a media organisation which will be arranged by the Institute. Submission of internship certificate from the institution concerned, is a must for eligibility of Diploma.

Computer lab

A fully equipped computer lab is functioning along with the institution. It has full internet access and connectivity with various news agencies around the globe. Students are free to use the facility as they want. A separate faculty is made available for the convenience of students. The main goals of the center is to equip the students with various computer skills like typing, editing , pagination, photoshop, visual data etc..

Hands on Training at Visual Media Newsroom

Prescribed hours of hands-on experience at newsrooms of visual news floors are being arranged for the students, as part of the course.

Students have to appear for written examinations at the end of each semester. Total marks for each paper will be 100. ( 60 marks for written examination and 40 for internal assessment). As part of the course there is a Project work of 60 marks and a viva voce of 40 marks.

First Semester

Second Semester

A minimum of 40% marks is required for passing in each paper. Rank and class will be decided after taking into account all the marks in each subject put together. For Distinction, the compulsory minimum is 80%. Those who score 60% and above will be placed in the First Class. Those who score 50% to 59% will be placed in the Second Class and 40% to 49% will be placed in the Third class. Students who fail in any of the paper will have to re-appear for subsequent year examination. There will be no provision for revaluation of answer papers.

Internal Assessment

40% of total marks are granted on the basis of internal assessment. Each student will be assessed by the faculty and the director based on his/her attendance, assignments, lab journal performance,project works, practical sessions, class notes, discipline, conduct, performance in seminar and class.