Collaborating With others

When looking at print and digital journalism as a whole there is a lot of collaboration involved. The writer-editor relationship and the writer-source relationship are the most obvious of the two. 

However, when having two writers collaborate on a single story the relationships can become more complicated.

When starting my internship with the Smeal College of Business’s Strategic Communication team, there was another writing intern whom I would start to write three rather large stories with. 

When getting assigned the first story we wrote together, there was some more confusion. However, as we work on our third story now, the other writing intern and I have some guidelines that we’ve abided by to make our process easier.

Here are some of my tips:

1. Share EVERYTHING you have done individually for the story.

When working on a story together it is crucial that you have a full understanding of the materials you will use to actually write the story even if you are doing your own individual research and interviewing.

My partner for my story and I create a shared folder and any work we do on the story will stay there. This can range from many things: interview recordings/notes, preliminary research, event notes, interview questions, and so much more.

Sharing all these resources means that if one of us decides to start writing before the other they have all they need to complete the story in the correct way.

2. Make sure you BOTH communicate with everyone

When working on any story where you are utilizing sources it is important to make sure that the source is comfortable. Although, only you or your co-collaborator may be speaking to a source it will make them more comfortable if you both introduce yourselves.

Sending an email in a chain you are attached to, can make the source feel a little better about participating in the story.

3. Make a plan and try to stick with it

Although everything never goes exactly to plan. It is important to have an idea of who can tackle what task and when, and to have a timeline that you can follow.

I usually start this by asking my co-collaborator what days are lighter for her than others. From there we create a schedule and divide work up more. Staying on this schedule and assigning work has helped us write our stories efficiently.

4. Actually Collaborating

Getting together in person or via Zoom has helped us in more ways than none. By actually communicating on what ideas we have for the story face to face allows for ideas to more freely bounce off of each other.

When getting assigned to work on a story together it is because whoever assigned you the story thought it would be better if you wrote it together. So do that, literally. Working with someone and taking the story out while writing makes the process so much easier.

These were some of my tips for working collaboratively on stories!