Dyuthi Vallamsetty

Reporter Addison Nguyen (9) at the “ChaRIZZmatic Communications” session discusses ways to implement team bonding activities at her own high school, University Preparatory Academy. The session offered many opportunities for students to interact with journalists with other schools and form new friendships.

SAN FRANCISCO  — Harker Aquila A&E/Lifestyle Editor Chelsea Xie (11) and Photo and Sports Editor Lily Peng (11) gave a presentation titled “ChaRIZZmatic Communications” at Archbishop Riordan High School for the annual JEANC Media Day Conference today.

The presenters discussed meaningful ways for journalism students to manage work while maintaining camaraderie and having fun, like through talent shows, funny Slack reactions and letters of appreciation. They hoped that attendees would take away lessons on how to prioritize friendship and informality in their student-run publications. 

“I really hope that people will learn that journalism isn’t all about the grind,” Chelsea said. I want them to go back and think about how they can make journalism more fun or how to build an actual journalism family. I hope that they can make journalism more fun for everyone.” 

Chelsea and Lily prepared for the session by creating a presentation based on past communications workshops. They explained Harker Hournalism’s use of interactive games to create stronger bonds and an uplifting atmosphere. They mentioned journalism students’ use of reactive emojis to make sure that important messages have been acknowledged throughout the community. 

They mentioned team morale building exercises, like gratitude circles, in which student journalists express their support and acknowledgement of other peers’ work. Another initiative discussed in the session was paper plates, in which after every Winged Post newspaper issue, the strategy team gives paper plates with different journalism superlatives, like MVP or Most Clutch, in order to recognize deserving individuals.

Senior Cora Champommier, Editor-In-Chief of the Redwood Bark, Redwood High School’s school newspaper, acknowledged the addition of the gratitude circles as a fun activity to help get to know student journalists on a more personal level. Because the incoming staff of her publication is mostly juniors, Cora appreciated the new information and looked forward to implementing it in her school’s newspaper. 

“I like the gratitude circles because when you’re working on a story, sometimes you get consumed with the work and forget that other people have to help you along with the process to get it published,” Cora said. “I think showing gratitude is a good reminder that it doesn’t take one person to finish a story but a whole community.”

Halfway through the session, Chelsea and Lily led a game of Priorities, in which volunteer Senior Gavin Lin, Editor-In-Chief at The Campanile, the Palo Alto High School student-run newspaper, ranked five random words in an order of how important they were to him. The rest of the attendees were split up into five groups of six individuals, and each team was tasked with guessing Gavin’s ranking. 

“Communication is very important in journalism and in the rest of your life. Learning how to communicate in different ways and more effectively is something that I always strive to do,” Gavin said. “So looking for events like these or like communication talks can help you adopt different takeaways. Something that I learned from this session is that the work/non-work balance in journalism is more important than I initially thought it was, and you can make space for team bonding as well as working.”

Although the closest team got two rankings correct, the game elicited high participation from many session attendees and was an entertaining way to break the ice. It also gave many journalism students a chance to interact with individuals from different high schools to share ideas and form connections.

“I liked that we played a game and I liked that it was lighthearted, and I got to talk to people, so that’s pretty cool. I thought the name of the session was really funny,” attendee Senior Ollie McPhail, an Opinion Editor at The Dispatch, said. “I wrote down a lot of the stuff that they said so that I can go back to my own journalism class and introduce it because we don’t do any bonding activities. The paper plates would be cool and senior night, not just because I’m a senior, but recognizing the seniors would be very great.”