Last Updated: October 01, 1996
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Team management is a "work in progress" that can succeed but isn't right for all newsrooms, says a newsroom manager who has implemented the concept. m"At its heart, it is an organizational structure, not a journalism structure," said Peter Bhatia, managing editor of the Portland Oregonian, at a roundtable discussion.
Seeds for the structure were planted in Portland in 1994. Bhatia said after an initial drop-off in spot news stories, the Oregonian has seen this result: better quality, depth and context in stories, at least in part because of better understanding of the subject matter by team members.
The Oregonian has 17 teams covering such areas as crime, public life (government) and living in the '90s. Each team has a leader and about eight reporters. Two senior editors help organize.
Team management was designed to "fundamentally change the culture" and journalism at the Oregonian, Bhatia said, which was not "in tune with the issues going on around it." In such a shift, he said, editors must be relentless in telling staffers what they are doing and why.
The message in Portland: Create an organization that helps build a journalism that is more expert, offers more context and addresses the needs of readers by being more compelling, he said.
"This is about pushing a lot of decision making out into the newsroom," Bhatia said, "and getting more decisions made by people closer to the stories.
"I'm happy with the progress we've made, while realizing this is a work
in progress."
Zaltsberg is editor of the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times.
