Forget 'to be;' whether to text, email or call - that's the real question - Poynter

"For an industry built on communicating information, journalists are absolutely terrible at communicating with each other. I'm always surprised by it. But given the number of anecdotes, jokes and horror stories I've heard, maybe I shouldn't be. Whether I'm teaching in St. Pete, Singapore, New York City or a virtual environment, I always get the same reaction: a guilty laugh. Everyone knows how bad we are at communicating with our peers, bosses and coworkers about our needs and problems at work."

"Author Erica Dhawan explores how we can better understand this change in her book "Digital Body Language." "Communicating what we really mean today," she writes, "requires that we understand today's signals and cues at a granular level while developing a heightened sensitivity to words, nuance, subtext, humor and punctuation - things we mostly think of as the field of professional writers." To thrive, she argues, we have to "master a language that didn't exist 20 years ago.""

"You probably talked to someone in-person, joined a group meeting, read an email, sent an email, replied all, CCed or BCCed someone, sent an instant message, sent a direct message, talked on the phone, left a voicemail, ignored a phone call, hosted a video call, joined on a video call praying they don't ask for cameras on, changed your tone of voice, made eye contact, raised an eyebrow, forwarded a link, replied with emojis,"

Journalists often fail to communicate clearly with coworkers despite working in an information-focused profession. Avoiding conflict, sidelining difficult conversations, and skirting small talk contribute to workplace communication breakdowns. Distributed teams amplify these challenges through geographic separation, time zones, and asynchronous schedules. Workplace interactions now span many channels—email, instant messages, calls, video, shared docs—and each channel carries distinct signals, cues, and norms. Effective communication requires sensitivity to words, nuance, subtext, tone, humor, and punctuation, and the deliberate creation of shared norms and skills to reduce misunderstanding and enable productive collaboration.

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