Conclusion

The norms by which audiences receive and appraise journalism are clearly changing. Jack Shepherd, for instance, indicated that the manner in which users read news was a consideration behind BuzzFeed’s model: “Think about what your Facebook feed is like. It has all sorts of different kinds of things in it. You’ll get news about an Ebola case in Dallas in the same breath that your sister just got a cute new cat.”

As serious journalism is clustered with a myriad of other web products, ranging from entertainment to personal posts and updates, it is worth reexamining the formats and practices by which news is disseminated. With this, serious journalists may need to reimagine their roles within this panoply of online information. However, as the industry adapts and struggles within these contexts, it is not surprising that the challenge of adopting a more playful attitude to news products has not been readily overcome.

When interviewing journalism professors for this report, all of whom supported the use of games and play in the news, an interesting phenomenon emerged. It was best expressed by Retha Hill, Arizona State University journalism professor and executive director of the Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab. As she put it, “It’s been kind of weird and frustrating that I’ll get these twenty-year-olds in, and it’s like, ‘What type of games do you play?’ and only 5–10 percent of them raise their hands,” she said. “And these other journalists are like, ‘We can’t even conceive of games because we don’t play games ourselves.’ You all are the oldest young people I’ve ever met.” The good news, as evidenced in the following chapter, is that a playful attitude is not only a strength in the actual practice of newsmaking, but it’s not too laborious to incorporate into everyday journalistic practices if done right.