Of the many existential crises journalism faces, the one most dire is its lack of a vision for its own future. Or of promise and hope. Stuck between decrepit business models, stodgy newsrooms and archaic people practices, journalism is seen as a “sunset” sector, rarely seen as a rewarding and challenging long-term career by even most practicing journalists. At The Ken, we’re on the other end of the spectrum. Because we believe we’re only entering a new golden period of reinvention and relevance, one where technology, internet and design thinking can help high-quality, original journalism find readers, subscribers and patrons who value and support it.
It is this confidence that enabled us, after nearly 3 years of being around, bring on board our first set of j-school graduates. From the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) in Chennai’s Bloomberg business journalism program join Pranav Shankar, Pranav Balakrishnan and Pramshu Peri. And from the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM) joins Sharath Kumar.
All four of them join us as graduate staff writers based in Bangalore. Over the next few months they’ll be trained, rotated, tested and coached to become distinctive, independent and original business journalists. Remember Savio? Well, that’s his big job. As we say at The Ken, #NoPressure 🙂
Having first time journalists in a young journalism startup filled with experienced journalists is something we’re all looking forward to. Because I’m sure both sides have much to learn and unlearn from each other. As do our subscribers.
One interesting side-effect is that we’ve gone from just one Pranav to three! Which has also broken our standard [email protected] email id convention. You can contact them at pranavs, pranavb, pramshu and sharath all [email protected]
