When smog paralysed Lahore in November 2025 and the Air Quality Index crossed 1,000 for five consecutive days, Pakistan's newsrooms scrambled. Schools closed, flights diverted, and a blame game dominated coverage while the real story, the crop-burning data, the transboundary pollution science, and the public health implications, went largely untold or was told badly. This second cohort was built on that reality: a deliberate evolution of the first, with more lectures, more specialized trainers, deeper coverage of Pakistani contexts, and a curriculum that challenged participants to move from reactive disaster coverage to proactive, investigative and solutions-focused reporting.

The capstone exercise placed participants inside a real-world scenario, November 2025, Lahore, AQI over 1,000 for five consecutive days, with schools closed and flights diverted. Participants had to communicate highly technical crop-burning and transboundary pollution data to the public, counter competing national narratives, and explain unprecedented government restrictions to a frightened population, testing journalism skills and crisis communication under pressure simultaneously.

Guest trainers were Afia Salam, Climate Communication Expert; Dr. Uzma Aleem, Lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; and Uneeba Waqar, Senior Broadcast Journalist on Environment and Climate Change.