The Fourth Estate

Though a government simulation can work with only a Congress, opening up new ways to play makes the game more enjoyable and more realistic. Players can now play as members of the Fourth Estate: the media (abbreviated as 4E from here out.) 4E players work to turn admin headlines into developed news stories, to uncover their own stories. This involves some investigative reporting, some intelligent analysis, and a lot of cooperation among your colleagues. As this is the second iteration of the 4E, the opportunities for advancement have been streamlined and improved to provide some real incentives (since we can't pay you like Tom Brokaw.)

Part 1: Starting Off

So you want to play media? When you sign in to the game and create your bio, make sure you include the following additional information. (These will all be described in detail later)

Mode: What part of the media are you? (Print, Broadcast, or Web)
Corporation: Who do you work for? (Time Warner or NewsCorp)
State: Where do you work? (State is all that's required, but a city helps)
Style: What's your specialty? (Investigative or Analysis)

Part 2: Media Modes

Media players should choose one of the following media modes to use. You can start a thread in your team's media forum to post your work.

Print: You have a column in a newspaper or magazine
Broadcast: You have a show on TV or Radio
Web: You run a blog, connected with one of your team's outlets

There are two considerations when choosing a mode. First, make sure your own tone as a writer matches the mode you pick. A newspaper sounds different than a radio show sounds different than a blog: never forget tone. Second, your mode will influence what types of leads and sources you can connect with.

Part 3: Corporations

To foster competition there will be two "teams" in the 4E, two competing media empires: Time Warner and News Corp. The branches we will outline next may or may not be actually affiliated with the corporation IRL, but we will assume these relations for our purposes here. We will also assume relative even strength of these units, since there isn't a 1:1 power comparison IRL.

Time Warner
Print: New York Times or TIME
Broadcast: CNN, Air America Radio
Tubes: Blogger, attached to one of the above

News Corp
Print: Wall Street Journal or National Review
Broadcast: Fox News, Salem Communications
Tubes: Blogger, attached to one of the above

You may or may not have noticed, but these groupings seem to reflect certain "biases" that may or may not exist both IRL and IG. We decided that the natural partisan divisions in DC will and should flow into the media. Of course, it is your choice how deeply you embrace those slants, if at all. (More on this later)

Each corporation will get a newsroom to conduct investigations and a public forum for posting news. Each corporation also has its own snazzy mask.

Part 4: News Generation, Investigations, and Analysis

Admins will generate news in two ways:

1) Headlines posted publicly on the Domestic and Foreign News Wire (blocks of 5 to 10 every week, plus some now and again)
2) Full news stories posted in the admin news forums

Sometimes, yes, we do like to write quite a bit, so we will have a mix of full and partial stories for the 4E to go after. 4E players will need to investigate the slimmer headlines and report on them to bring this information to light for the rest of the game. Political players can try to find details about these stories themselves, but the 4E will have access to the best sources. After all, your Chief of Staff only knows what he just saw on TV.

4E players aren't required to only report the news, of course. With all the headlines being generated (both by admins and by player actions), 4E players are encouraged to analyze the news and produce columns and shows to this effect. As stated earlier, when you first sign up, you should choose a style: investigative or analysis. You are by no means locked into the mold you select (again, creativity and breadth is encouraged), but that is the mold we will first consider when grading your work. If you say you're a reporter, but spend all your time railing against Congress, your viewers will know.

Part 5: Starting Off

All 4E players start off as an entry-level columnist, host, reporter, blogger, what-have-you for your team, based in a local market. You work will be graded on quality and adherence to your goals. We'll give a rating weighted by the size of the market to produce an accurate comparison of players. (If more people see you in LA than in Tulsa, it doesn't matter.)

Ratings (a blanket term, not TV ratings -- it will likely be on a 100% scale) will be given every two months, in the off periods between elections (12/2009, 12/2011, 12/2013,...) This distributes the burden on admin grading, and gives you a chance to really shine in election coverage.

The five highest rated 4E players of each team are eligible for promotion to the national level.

Part 6: Advancement - Going National

Out of the top five 4E players on each team, three from each corporation are promoted to the national level. We will offer the position to the first three, leaving the possibility for refusals. (Hey some Housies never want to be a Senator either, right?) After the first election, national players need to stay in this top 5 to keep their jobs. These national players see their local work syndicated at the national level, and now will work in direct competition with the opposing corporation.

National media is graded and given ratings on the same cycle as local media, with extra detail given to age demographics and the top 25 media markets. The two national corporations are fighting for the greatest audience share, and percentage breakdown will be given. (LA: 42-38-20, for example) The "winning" corporation of each two year session will be given a special bonus. (Some details later)

The three national shows should be pinned in your team's subforum for easy grading.

Part 7: Running the show - CEO

All the members of a corporation will choose a CEO out of their membership to run the organization. This person is responsible for organizing the national coverage to be of the highest quality possible. The possibilities for this role are not defined beyond this point, and the corporation's board (you people) should determine how much power your CEO wields. How much of a coherent, team message do you want? It's up to you.

Part 8: Changing modes or careers?

Is it possible for a 4E player to change to a different medium mid-career? Sure, there are plenty of examples of this IRL, but the really successful ones are radio to TV. You will probably lose some of your fans, and your new demographics might not embrace you so much, but worse things have happened.

Can 4E players become politicians? Yes, with some rules. First, you must be from the state you selected originally, or you will be subject to the usual carpetbagging rules. Second, you must "retire" from the media by the end of the grading of the session preceding the election you want to run. (Want to run for Senate in 2012? You have to retire at the end of 2011)

Part 9: Party Media and Name Recognition

What about the old party media apparatus? Simply put, it is no more. Parties will no longer be involved in spin, outside of an official Party Press Office run by the Chairman or a designee. Politician players will only have their press offices; no more side media characters. All those old partisan or non-partisan interview shows and magazine are now part of the 4E. If you want to run one, you should play as media; if you just want to be interviewed, stay as a politician. By separating these functions, we aim to build up an arm of the game that really does function to check up on what the government is up to.

But what incentive is there to work with the media? Well, now our under-the-hood calculations of your name recognition can be influenced by your appearances in the media. Congressman Jones is not well known if he make 25 press releases, but he is if he gets onto Meet the Press. How do you get onto a show? Do something important, catch the eye of a reporter, make friends with the 4E guys who pick the schedule. And what if the media tries to shut you out? Well, if you're important enough and should be on the news, the public will know, and that network may see a decline in ratings.

Part 10: Tone -- "I wanna be biased!"

Would you rather be Olbermann instead of Brokaw? There's no reason why you can't. There are no hard restrictions in the 4E regarding bias, especially with Party Media going away.

Think of it as you would a Congressman character: Do you want to be a partisan hack or a mushy centrist? Do you want to party soldier or a bipartisan appeaser? You have the same kind of choices with the 4E. You can aim to be a trusted and esteemed columnist, attracting readers with you level and fair assessments. Or you can be a hitman with a microphone trying to disembowel your political enemies. Of course, how you play affects how the public sees you, and what your ratings will be.

The ultimate decision will rest with your corporations CEO (if you have allowed him such powers). Does your company want to be well-respected by the American people for level analysis or partisan opinions? Or do you want to achieve some level of balance?

Part 11: Bonuses and other more ephemeral incentives

There will be no strict point style bonuses in the 4E. Instead we'll keep things more free-flowing, but hopefully more creative. Successful players and teams will receive bonuses for good work, usually in the form of improved sources from the admin team.

But -- to take things a little more abstract -- why play 4E at all? The only concrete "benefits" to a lot of hard work is a pinned thread and a extra time talking to the admins. What we hope that you see, is that the 4E is a chance to approach the game in a different light. Although our basic structure follows the traditions of partisanship, the real game here is in creativity and connections.

We see this as an opportunity for players to be display some more creativity than the usual bill and press release writing. You have a half dozen modes to work with, and we'd love to see how different players take different approaches to these. This is especially true in the case of web news. We're starting in about 2010 and rapidly moving ahead - the Internet is only going to play a larger role in our lives, so if you have ideas for how to spread the news that way, let's see them.

Also, one of the big opportunities here is to see the game from a different angle. There are dozens of scenarios running at any given time, and with the exception of the White House, most players miss most of them. In the 4E, you'll have a chance to dig for these things yourselves and get more information about what's happening. You also be able to dig into what even the admins don't necessarily know -- the secretive dirty world of partisan politics. There's a lot more happening in DC than just the bills; we hope that some of you will really want to explore that.

Finally, we're going to let you - if you really want to - run a second show/publication as a different personality. Only one of your outlets will be graded (you must stipulate which) and will have an effect on your team's performance. The other, while not explicitly graded, can still have an effect in more qualitative ways (like those super sliders, perhaps). The hope is that allowing an extra outlet per 4E player will encourage people to get really creative. So let's see what you got

Part 12: Start of the Reset Plan

As we're beginning with the 2010 elections, 4E players can get right into things reporting on the events of 2009 and analyzing the events of 2010. Expect a large dish-out of admin news soon covering the events that have occurred IG since the present day. The 4E can and should get right to work on this.

Everyone in the 4E will be a local player until 2011; at that point will make the first promotions. CEOs should still be selected immediately.

New 4E System

For those who have taken part in the 4E system so far this reset, or at the end of last reset, our sincerest thanks. Your hard work has led to this point, where we're able to address concerns from the player base about the media system, and incorporate them into the system, adapting 4E to meet the needs and demands of USG.

Media Multis:
Everyone gets one media multi. Think of this as your pen name. You do not need to post a bio in the sign-in forum for this character. Just make sure to attach your pen name to each submission you make in the Editor's Desk. When we publish your story, we'll just include your pen name, so feel free to use it secretly if you wish - no other player has to know who you are.

Media Outlets:
There are three types of media, internet, TV, and newspaper. Similarly, there are three outlets of each type - one right-leaning, one left-leaning, and one that is considered "neutral". They are:

Internet: Huffington Post, Politico, Drudge Report
TV: MSNBC, CNN, FOX News
Newspaper: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal

The "neutral" outlets have the widest exposure, so if you want to make a name for yourself, aim for those.

Each outlet also has three levels of prominence. Which level your piece is published on is decided by the publishing admin. They are:

Internet: Main story, Side post, Link snippet
TV: Primetime, Daytime, Late night
Newspaper: Front page, B3, Back page

The higher the level of prominence your piece is published on, the more eyeballs it gets.

Submitting a Story:
Post your story in the Editor's Desk forum. At the top of your post, please include the following information:
Name: This is your media multi's name.
Title: A suggested title for your piece. Note: we reserve the right to change this if we see fit.
Suggested Outlet: Where do you think it should be published? We won't necessarily push it there, but this does provide us guidance as to what outlet you're aiming for. Include the format and which publication you prefer. We may approach you with options on this if we see fit.

Getting Your Story Published:
After you submit a story in the Editor's Desk, one of the media admins will read it through and either accept it, moving it to publication, or reject it, sending it back to you with commentary.

A few words of advice on getting published:
Be interesting. Cookie cutter stories are boring, and probably won't make it to the public page.
Be well-written. No one likes to have to struggle through a story that's poorly done. Spell check is your friend.
Be topical. Pay attention to what's going on in the IG world and write about that.
Be respected. Authors who are constantly getting published or winning awards are more likely to continue getting published.
Be somewhat fair. We're not asking for everything to be written with a perfectly neutral tone, but hit pieces and slam pieces will either not be published, or relegated to the fringe outlets.

The Big Board:
Similar to the 4E rankings that were released periodically throughout this reset, Media Admins will keep an updated Big Board with rankings for all media members. How do you climb the big board?

Simple:
Get published. The more often you're getting out there, the more people know your name.
Be well-written. Again, the better written your articles are, the more people will read them.
Be neutral. Those authors who are consistently making their way onto the "middle" outlets will find themselves in front of more eyeballs. If you're consistently writing hit pieces, you'll lack a serious following. That said, there is room for some "Rush"-type mouthpieces. They're never going to be quite as respected as a mainstream author of the same quality, but it is quite possible to build up a sizable following from the fringes.

Why should I write a story?
Because media influences the sliders, and the opinions of the e-people. If you're consistently getting pieces published on a topic, the e-people are consistently going to be inundated by your views, and if you're convincing enough, you'll shift public opinion.

Can I play just a media member?
Absolutely. No one's forced to participate in the Washington side of USG, so if you want to be a dedicated media member, feel free. Dedicated media members will receive bumps in their big board scores - it's easier to climb the charts if you're only playing a media member.

What about press conferences?
Any one who is a published member of the media may attend a press conference and ask questions. You must use your press credentials for this, meaning if you wish to remain anonymous as a media member, you can't go to a press conference. We'll hold the line pretty closely on behavior in press conferences, and misbehavior in a press conference will get your press credentials permanently revoked.

So, is this the end of "investigatory journalism"?
Nope. Dedicated media members (those who do not have a character playing in the politics side of the game) will still receive access to some leaked news stories and information from admins prior to their publication to the rest of the sim. That means that those players who choose to focus only on media will be able to break this news to the sim at large.

Fourth Estate, mark 3

The media world in USG is evolving again; these rules will supersede all previous iterations of the media rules.

Top-Tier Outlets

Several media outlets will continue to exist as they do now. Players will make submission anonymously to the Editor's Desk, where admins will review the content and post the piece to the appropriate outlet. Each player will be limited to one media multi as a name to publish under.

The bar for publication on these top-tier outlets will be quite high. Writing quality, timeliness, and your multi's publication history will all be considered. With this high bar for quality comes a strong influence on public opinion. These top-tier outlets will carry significant weight in the e-people's eyes, and these media pieces will see the greatest impact.

The top-tier outlets will include:
The New York Times (print articles)
CNN (television programs)
[Politico (Internet)

Party Outlets

To allow for a greater range of publication, several media outlets will be designated for use by the two parties. In these outlets, party members will be allowed to post new pieces freely, once again under the name of a media multi (one per player). Party chairmen will be given mod powers initially; they can choose to designate Media officers as they see fit.

Given the association between the parties and the outlets the public will see, their influence on public opinion will be much lower. It will take a sustained message across high quality pieces in the party media outlets to approach the effect on public opinion seen in top-tier publication.

The party outlets include (left/right):

Newsweek/Newsmax (print)
MSNBC/Fox News Channel (television)
Huffington Post/Drudge Report (internet)