Many journalists are accustomed to working alone, doing their own research, conducting interviews, and writing stories without much support or help from others. Teamwork is a challenge for them. They lack teamwork competence and find it stressful.

They hate to do group work as it has many challenges, including that opinions of each team member may vary widely.

What does the word TEAM mean?

TEAM, a word which is known for showing togetherness in a group stands for:

Together Everyone Achieves More!

Why Teamwork?

Journalism is a vast field. A journalist has many options and one can dabble in multiple fields. Teamwork is its backbone and each person has a specific role to play to make it a success. For example, a good content writer needs the help of many other professionals to make your content newsworthy.

Good content writers often work with editors (who read the written content, edit it, and make it brief and presentable), and graphic designers (who make their images worthy).

Team works require time, money, quality, reliability and most importantly your presence. You should contribute to your team in every aspect whether it is your time, money or effort. If one of the members becomes dormant, the teamwork becomes very stressful.

Then, there’s the possibility of team mismanagement. Even then, you must do what you are assigned to do – to make sure you are not blamed if the task fails. A person working in a group definitely achieves more than a person working alone – as TEAM matters. The efforts of the group matter and counts more than the efforts of individual work.

A person can go far if he walks alone but if he has to reach far, he has to have a good team by his side!

What is Teamwork Competence in Journalism?

A study on TV reporters found that apart from transactive memory and job competence, teamwork competence also plays a crucial role to help you succeed in the field of journalism.

With the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT), the world of journalism is shifting to multimedia news production and tactical media use. Many journalists do not have enough training in digital technology – and they need help to sustain their journalistic identity and professional quality.

Before long, we may see physical newsrooms disappearing and see news interviews, editing, and production systems happening in virtual spaces. Hence, increasingly, journalism and mass communication courses are becoming more project-based, where students learn the overall process of news production in the traditional as well as the digital work environment.

Today, news organizations rely on large teams to produce professional, balanced reports, as well as, solve problems swiftly.  They need to facilitate collaboration between the team members and also need to exercise control over them.

For example, while reporting the ongoing Russia-Ukrain war, the cameraman needs to capture the footage, the news reporters have to interview witnesses and narrate what is happening, and the back-end team needs to search for footage available elsewhere and triangulate multiple sources of evidence into an interesting news story.

All of this requires prompt passing of news and information to all the team members, preparing and presenting news stories on different platforms (newspapers, TV, social media, and web), and negotiating and determining which news or topics need to be highlighted or prioritized.

In such a scenario, teamwork competence helps journalists to:

• Connect with the news sources quickly: Successful reporters have an extensive network of contacts from which they can draw information quickly. From politicians to business owners, journalists have diverse contacts and an uncanny ability to get their hands on stories that other people cannot.
• Collaborate with teammates willingly: In the journalistic world, team collaboration is essential. Journalism teams need to work collaboratively and harmoniously in order to cover stories quickly and accurately. While office politics exists everywhere, in a newsroom, it can prove to be catastrophic.
• Resolve team conflicts effectively: In journalism, you will often face conflicts among teammates. From conflicting deadlines to clashing ideas, dealing with such situations requires a great degree of leadership and teamwork competence.

With an effective team management approach, reporters can work together to get the best out of each other and deliver news stories that will be remembered for years to come.

• Share knowledge with teammates: In a newsroom, reporters are expected to be well-informed and up-to-date with the latest developments. They need to have comprehensive knowledge of their topics in order to be able to provide complete coverage. And they need to share the chunks of knowledge they have with each other to come up with detailed, cohesive stories faster.

In a nutshell, teamwork competence is essential for journalists to deliver accurate, timely and comprehensive news stories that will help readers be informed and updated on the latest developments.

Start Practice with College Group works

If you are a Mass Communication or a Journalism student, the first few weeks of college are very critical. You have no idea who are going to be your friends, with whom are you going to work. In such cases, you must make yourself involved with a lot of people, and interact with them so that you are not left aside. You must also share your ideas freely so that people consider you to be their team member.

How to build teamwork competence as a Mass Comm or Journalism student?

1.      Attend your classes

You should be regular in attending your classes. Missing the lectures would result in failure of building relationships with your teammates and hence would hamper you from contributing ideas.

Some teammates are not cooperative. They just complain about every single thing you’ve done wrong or have not done anything. In such cases, do not lose your cool. Be focused only on your work. If you start thinking about what others are thinking, you are never going to get bold.

2.      Be Responsive

The frequency of communications goes up around the deadlines. At that time, you have to show your responsiveness towards your team members. You must not ignore their messages. You should always be ready to offer last moment help.

3.      Get the approvals

Getting the approvals is very important so as to avoid last-minute problems.

Problems can arise at any time, so get prepared for the same. If your teammates are not cooperative then the chances of problems are more.

Don’t worry. Get approvals from your supervisor at the earliest to avoid last minute rush. If there’s a delay in work submission then you might get trapped in a fix.

4.      Work Management

The work should be divided among the team in such a way that every member has a balanced load of work. This way, it would seem less daunting and be more doable.

5.      Diversified Team

While making teams, assign roles according to people’s talents. A team should be made in a way that each individual knows something or the other. For example, if a person has to make a short film then he must make a group in which people are divided according to their skills in Photography, Video Editing, Shooting, Sound Effects, Camera Handling, Acting etc.

Conclusion

Having team competence is a matter of practice and trust. It requires strong communication and collaboration skills to become an effective member of a team.

The best way to build teamwork competence is to start with college group work and then gradually move on to professional teams. Working this way will help you master the art of working in a team environment and make your newsroom environment as efficient as possible.