The Centre for Excellence in Journalism was set up in 2014 under a grant from the US State Department with the intention to set up a state-of-the-art training centre to be used by journalists and journalism students. The four partners in this project were the US state department (funder), the International Centre For Journalists (ICFJ), Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Chicago and the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.

All these targets were achieved within the target period. Since 2017, CEJ is being run as a Professional Development Centre (PDC) under the IBA umbrella. Over the years, CEJ has trained more than 1,200 professional journalists through boot camps, workshops, webinars, and certificate courses.

Under the Masters of Science in Journalism (MSJ) program, around 40 students have graduated and been absorbed in the media industry or in academia. Some of these students have produced award winning documentaries and articles as part of their studies at IBA.

With the help of DW Akademie, CEJ also runs a counselling service for working journalists. This service has come at a time when the media industry is going through a transition phase in which jobs have been lost and journalists have had to re-adjust and re-train themselves in order to be part of the industry.

CEJ also offers media trainings to the corporate sector. CEOs and senior executives are given one-on-one and customised trainings on dealing with and understanding the media.

An advisory board oversees the working of CEJ.
The board is currently headed by Azhar Abbas (MD, Geo TV) and includes the following members:

• Javed Jabbar (Ex-senator and former minister for information),
• Ms Sultana Siddiqi (CEO, Hum TV),
• Dr Jabbar Khattak (Secretary General Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors and Chief Editor Awami Awaz Media Group),
• Ahmed Baloch (CEO Vsh TV),
• Badar Alam (Chief Editor, Sujag),
• Dr Seemi Naghmana (Former chairperson Department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi).

International members of the board include:

• Dr Craig Duff (Emmy award-winning video journalist and documentary television director, producer, and a professor of journalism at the Medill School at Northwestern University).