Be it the course, infrastructure or the faculty, everything is being redesigned for the new 9.9 School of Convergence. The media school was shut down two years back, due to inadequate funding.
Talking about the institute, Pramath Raj Sinha, founder and managing director, 9.9 Mediaworx, says, "The idea took off from the need we and other media companies are facing today. The need is for good journalists and every media company is looking for them. Therefore, we decided to put together something that is worthwhile and matches the global standards. We are just retaining the name of the school; everything else will be new here."
The institute is starting its first batch in September with just one course, an eleven-month diploma in Applied Journalism. The course will focus on the fundamentals of reporting, writing and editing. Classes for this part-time course will be held only on Sundays.
The school has an impressive list of faculty members, including Graham Watts, a journalist and trainer; BV Rao, consulting editor with MoneyLife, a fortnightly magazine, and a columnist on Indian media; Rasheeda Bhagat, associate editor of Hindu Business Line; Savyasaachi Jain, a media trainer and practitioner; Edward Henning, a teacher-turned-journalist; Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, independent media consultant and writer; Mala Bhargava, a psychologist-turned-media professional. Other faculty members are Jacob Cherian, Radha Hegde, Vinay Kamat, Pooja Kothari, Ranbir Majumdar, Eric Saranovitz and Pramath Raj Sinha.
Apart from acquiring 9.9 SoC, Mediaworx recently took over iGovernment.in, a government focused online portal. With this initiative, the company has entered the government vertical, targeting the advertising and promotions budgets of companies focused on e-governance. Sinha adds that soon, Mediaworx will build a magazine around this content.
Early this year, the company had announced plans of launching Inc. magazine in India by June. However, the launch got delayed. "We have now got the approval from the MIB (Ministry of Information and Broadcast), and within two months, we will launch the print version of the magazine," informs Sinha.
He adds that the company is going strong with plans of launching niche magazines. It is thinking of building an education magazine, as well as one revolving around small and medium enterprises.
However, he emphasises that despite the drop in newsprint prices, not many foreign media companies would come to India. "The media there is bleeding and coming to India will be the last thing on their mind. This, I presume, will continue for this fiscal." Another factor affecting the print industry adversely is the decline in the number of advertisers due to the economic conditions.
