Meehika Barua, winner of our Journalism Now Scholar competition, tells us why she parked the architecture career to pursue journalism, why she was keen to enrol on Journalism Nows online courses, and her hopes from this year's Thomson Foundation digital and multimedia summer course in London.
I wish I could say I knew the exact moment when I realised that architecture wasnt for me. I just couldn't feel it in my veins as a promising career for myself, but I did love to write.
I tried to pitch some articles and ideas to editors at Thought Catalog, an online youth culture magazine in the US, which I had bookmarked on my internet browser and regularly visited. I was politely knocked back by two of the editors but landed a contributor role with another. This boosted my byline and proved a great asset to show other editors.
The skills you need to forge ahead in journalism are many. That s when I landed on Journalism Now.
Meehika Barua, winner, Journalism Now Scholar 2018
Getting over the first fence in journalism I began to pitch more widely and was soon approached by the editor of The Quint, a multi-platform financial and news company in India. At this stage, I was just trying my luck in every niche - culture, entertainment, business, lifestyle, fashion, breaking news. Once I proved that I knew what I was doing, it turned into regular work.
What soon followed was not my big break, but at least it got me over the first real fence in my journalism career - an internship with Times Internet, the digital arm of the Times Group, the largest media conglomerate in India, and then a full-time staff writer role for its digital magazine, MensXP.com.
I tried my hand at a broad range of stories here, which I'm very proud of. From the Indian para-athlete who was forced to beg in Berlin after being left without money while competing abroad, and the heroic wing commander who gave up his life to save 169 people, to the Russian Uber scammers who were taking trips worth thousands by hacking into the accounts of Indian users.
Connecting with a like-minded international community There's no doubt that the skills you need to forge ahead in journalism are many. I decided my next steps would be to search online for fellowships but I somehow landed on the Thomson Foundation website, and specifically, its Journalism Now Scholar competition.
To be eligible to enter, for a chance to win an all-expenses paid place on the Thomson Foundation five-week summer course in London, entrants had to complete five online courses from its Journalism Now programme.
The Journalism Now course subjects excited me and, having seen how experienced the course instructors were, I keenly enrolled on some of the courses.
It wasn't my specific goal to try to win the competition. I actually never thought I'd win. I was just happy to be completing assignments that were designed by leading journalists and which involved experts from The Guardian, BuzzFeed, the BBC and The Telegraph. It was also great to be able to connect with a like-minded international community through the Journalism Now platform.
I'm now looking forward to spending five weeks in London to sharpen up my multi-platform journalism skills with some of the best industry mentors that the UK has to offer. Together with the Journalism Now programme, I'm sure the summer course will give me the best practical training I need to accelerate my journalism career.
With such experienced course instructors, I was keen to enrol on Journalism Now.
Meehika Barua, winner, Journalism Now Scholar 2018
A great effort from all of the entrants It was impressive to see the quality of work and the great effort that all of the entrants put into the Journalism Now Scholar competition , says Thomson Foundation's director of innovation and learning, Hosam El Nagar.
Meehika was chosen as our winner because of her very high scores in all of the courses she had undertaken, but also because of her active participation in the community. Congratulations to her .
Journalism Now A new global platform offering lifelong learning to journalists across the world
Live courses A series of courses designed to update journalists digital and multimedia skills
Competition Introducing a new journalism competition from Journalism Now
We get around. Explore our project map
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
Meehika Barua, winner of our Journalism Now Scholar competition, tells us why she parked the architecture career to pursue journalism, why she was keen to enrol on Journalism Nows online courses, and her hopes from this year's Thomson Foundation digital and multimedia summer course in London. 
