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gothamgazette.com
Gotham Gazette will create more news games, like this 2005 NYC Preservation Game. |
Trying to incorporate new media into a newspaper isn't all fun and games -- unless you're
Gail Robinson, chief editor of
Gotham Gazette. Robinson won a
$250,000 Knight News Challenge grant to develop a series of five or six "news games" that will be featured on the Gotham Gazette in the coming year.
The topics of these games are currently up in the air, but will range from urban planning to trash disposal. They will be designed so that players' decisions can be compiled, publicly discussed and perhaps even used to influence community policies.
Guest Tidbits contributor Daniel Schultz recently interviewed Robinson about this project.
Shultz:Why do you think your project was selected?
Robinson: Our good penmanship? Seriously, while I wouldn't presume to put myself in the judges' heads, I think Gotham Gazette's history and experience must have had a lot to do with it. Since 1999, we've been pioneers in community journalism on the Web -- albeit in the very large community of New York City.
Also, under our previous editor-in-chief Jonathan Mandell, we did some news games that were well received and (we think) contributed to public debate and understanding of key local issues.
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RECENTLY IN NEWS CHALLENGE SERIES
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Schultz:Journalistically speaking, what would you say is the most new or different element of your project?We see this project as going beyond the game itself to fostering a discussion within our community about some of the big problems facing us. While there will be new and interesting elements in every game, we're particularly excited about developing a way to "capture" solutions that game players come up with.
For example, we could do a game about reducing traffic congestion in New York. Players would act as transportation policy makers. After being presented with the pros and cons of various solutions -- better transit, car fee zones, higher tolls, congestion pricing -- they would create a transportation plan for the city. Then they would somehow submit those plans to Gotham Gazette. We're still working out how that will happen.
We'd then discuss those solutions in articles on our site and present the ideas to the city government. In a few cases we may offer public forums, which could include key officials, to discuss those solutions. Gotham Gazette will cover those forums on our site and, we hope, the conversation will continue.
Schultz:By nature, games are something of an "unreality." How can you ensure that a players will understand that they should take the game seriously without losing a sense of fun?
Robinson: That is what's so great about using games this way. The fun of the game attracts people who might normally never read an article about, say, solid waste disposal or balancing the budget. However, giving them "The Garbage Game" or "Bust the Bank" pulls them in. The example we have used is The Daily Show: People first tune in for Jon Stewart's comedy, but they end up learning something about what's going on in the world.
Our previous games had a lot of information -- most of us at Gotham Gazette are policy wonk journalists after all. Still, people did like the games and played them.
Schultz:Which topics do you hope to address in your games?
We're a news site, so the news will shape our games. But we have several ideas, such as the Garbage Game. Players would make a series of decisions as they follow New York's trash from the moment it's tossed in the garbage can to its final resting place.
We're also considering a game about urban issues in the presidential campaign -- something related to affordable housing in the city, where players might have to develop a reasonably priced apartment building.
We could do a land use game involving one or more areas of the city slated for massive development -- players could determine what they want there.
Also, since our grant ends in the midst of a mayoral campaign, we'd probably have a game pegged to that. But most of these game ideas are tentative at this point.
Daniel Schultz is an information systems undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University.
