Ever since I was a young child, I’ve always dreamed of becoming a journalist. Whether through my work for audio, television, or print, I would consistently make it my mission to achieve this goal. Infatuated by my newly found career aspiration, I would aggressively consume all types of news media (NPR, AP, BBC, ABC/NBC), and would mimic the working style of some of our country’s greatest journalists (Peter Jennings, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, and Lester Holt). However, it wasn’t until I started dipping my hands into the gaming genre of tycoons, that I became exposed to the different management roles in the journalism industry and how gaming tycoons can educate me on these roles.
Initially, I idiotically believed that once you became a correspondent for a major network, like ABC or CNN, then that was it; you’ve made it! However, one of my high school journalism instructors quickly shot down my weak notion, exposing me to the high-paying field of news management, which included news editors, executive producers, managing editors, and company presidents. It wasn’t until high school that I received my first job in journalism. Working as a sound technician/master control operator at CBS affiliate WDEF-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I was naïve and young. Serving as an intern before being hired at the same station, I overshadowed many people within the television station. But I will forever remember my time shadowing the station’s news director. Seeing him gracefully manage an award-winning news team that could excel for centuries, made news management look extremely easy. And so, with that thought, I ran with it, containing another mistake within itself. This was mainly because I thought local and national news stations were ran similarly.
Still aspiring to be a journalist, mostly forgetting about my conversation with my former boss, I came across a newly released tycoon game titled News Tower (Feb. 14th, 2024). Impulsively, I watched over two hours of gameplay before buying the game.
The Gameplay 🕹️
Based in the 1940s, players are tasked with opening a local newspaper in New York City that covered national topics, like The Washington Post. As the player progresses throughout the game, they must hire reporters, copy editors, and other publication staff. Players are also tasked with taking ‘backdoor’ money from the Mayor, Wall Street economists, and the Mafia, which heavily influence the player’s paper. They must do this to reach the weekly publishing deadline of Sunday at 24:00.
As I turned on my iMac to start the game, my face lit up with excitement, not only because I finally had a good reason to procrastinate, but because this game catered to my career interests and could be enjoyable. So, with the game fully loaded, I cleverly decided to name my paper, ‘The Brooklyn Times.’ The name ‘The Brooklyn Times’ was inspired by the 1834-1937 New York newspaper, ‘The Brooklyn Times-Union.’ I started by hiring 3 reporters, 3 copy editors, and worked on upgrading my printing press. Everything was going perfectly fine until the Mafia started to get upset with the content that my paper was printing. They ended up sending 14 of their members into the newsroom, and both beat my staff and destroyed all our printing equipment, preventing my small team of reporters from getting their work published. After two days of business, I was forced to take out a $20,000 mafia-controlled loan to cover the damages. I started thinking to myself… “Okay, a minor inconvenience, this can still work out.”
Recovering from the Mafia’s blow, I forced the paper to skip its second publication deadline, and mistakenly hired more reporters to make up for lost time. For weeks after, the newsroom was bustling with the constant flow of sports, crime, comedy, and economic coverage. All reporters produced stellar content, resulting in paper sales exceeding the thousands and many advertisement offers. I chuckled slightly, reminiscing about my thoughts about my old boss’ job looking easy. However, not so shortly after doing so, my publication reported on sexual assault allegations faced by the mayor, and just two days later, the mayor filed 8 major lawsuits that needed to be settled by the paper in 3 days. In real life, most medium-low marker television stations just refrain from covering controversial topics that they believe can bring about lawsuits, mostly because lawyers are pricey.
Due to the absence of a company lawyer, we lost the lawsuit and were ordered to pay the mayor $70,000, which we didn’t have. Quickly, things started going downhill, as the debt forced me to decrease the salaries of my star reporters and ultimately lay off 60% of my staff, an action common among many reputable news organizations. After only a few more weeks, and 113,000 loyal readers later, my staff couldn’t take the pay cuts and went on strike, with some ultimately walking out. We were already in debt, and the mass walkout at The Times resulted in the paper missing yet another deadline and dipping far into unrecoverable debt. Because of this, I was forced to close the paper, ending both the game and my tenure as general manager of The Brooklyn Times.
The Learning Aspect🎒
Exhausted by my failed news organization, I quietly soaked back in my seat for 30 minutes, recollecting whether I was a terrible journalist, manager, or both! However, I soon realized that this tycoon taught me that at the foundation of every successful news company is a leader who possesses a clear strategy, understands their limits, and has empathy for their employees. Understanding these learning tools through gameplay can be vital to educating students who are possibly interested in media management. This learning method is fun and immerses the student in its objective, presenting real-world problems that require real-world solutions.
-Jaylan Sims
New Media: Storytelling in Literature, Films, and Games 
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