Six Days, One Classroom: Parul University Journalism Students Go Inside India's Biggest Newsrooms

Journalism students from Parul University, Vadodara, spent six days in August 2026 inside India's biggest newsrooms as part of a Delhi media leadership tour, meeting India TV Chairman Rajat Sharma, NDTV's Padmaja Joshi and the India Today Network's Rajdeep Sardesai, and going behind the scenes at PTI, Hindustan Times, News18, TV9 and Republic.

What the Delhi Media Leadership Tour Covered

The tour was built as a working education rather than a set of guided visits. On day one, at India Gate, each group had ten minutes to prepare and then deliver a live 60-second piece to camera, a compressed version of the calls a field reporter makes on deadline. The full itinerary is documented in Parul University's feature on the Delhi media leadership tour.

How News Is Verified at a National News Agency

At the Press Trust of India, Editor Shuja ul Haq walked students through the agency's three-source rule: any story affecting public interest must be confirmed by three independent sources before it goes out. He put the agency's scale plainly, roughly 90 percent of the country's newspaper market, more than 1,000 text stories and close to 400 live feeds a day, and kept returning to one word. "You will be a good journalist if you make sure your stories are accurate," he told the group.

How a Newspaper Goes From Page to Press

At Hindustan Times, students traced a finished page through pre-press, press and mailroom. They learned how a colour PDF is separated into cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates and printed at up to 90,000 copies an hour. Inside Parliament earlier that day, they sat in both chambers and stopped at the Foucault pendulum in the Constitution Hall, a working demonstration of the earth's rotation.

What India's Top Journalists Told the Students

India TV Chairman Rajat Sharma spent two hours with the group, telling them journalism runs on being “free, fair and fearless” rather than instant fame. NDTV's Padmaja Joshi was candid that anchoring is a lonely job and advised students to begin in reporting. When one student asked Rajdeep Sardesai how to network better, he pushed back and said the real skill is storytelling, not contacts. The advice, gathered in career advice from India's top anchors and editors, converged: specialise first, read newspapers cover to cover, and become a strong reporter before an anchor.

How Many People It Takes to Put One Face on Screen

A television bulletin is the work of many teams, not one anchor. Tracing a story through the production and master control rooms at News18, TV9 and Republic, students watched graphic designers, CG operators, sound engineers and directors working in parallel with reporters. At Republic's Noida campus, described by the network as Asia's largest integrated newsroom, anchors were placed inside 3D environments in a chroma studio.

The range of voices at the India Today Network made the point. Sports head Vikrant Gupta told students to be a master of two skills so they always keep a second route open, crime editor Shams Tahir Khan said the craft is storytelling rather than shock, and reporter-turned-anchor Marya Shakil reminded them that picking up a mic means picking up a responsibility.

How Parul University Teaches Journalism

Immersion of this kind is how the university's Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication and its Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication are taught, pairing classroom study with studios, media labs and continuous industry exposure, so that students graduate as journalists rather than as people who studied journalism.