Although former Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications Prof. Jeremy Gilbert has left Northwestern, he is still working to improve media consumption with his news gamification app, Headliner.
Gilbert recently finished his first week as director of digital operations at National Geographic. Gilbert moved to Washington, D.C., and started his new job last week, where he helps make new media products for the magazine.
Gilbert, who specializes in media product design, said he wanted to strengthen National Geographic’s digital content and presence. Specifically, he said he wants to improve work flow to make storytelling easier.
“I love Medill, I love Northwestern and I think I always will,” Gilbert said. “On the other hand, the content at National Geographic is incredible and the quality of the people here is great too and … I didn’t think I was done doing the thing I was teaching.”
While at Medill, Gilbert worked on a news app called Headliner, designed to encourage people to read more news and be mindful of the media they consume. The app allows users to “check in” to articles and compete with others to log the most stories. Gilbert said he has not given up on the app since leaving Medill.
Gilbert collaborated with design company Smart Media Creative on the project. The most recent version of the app was funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation’s “Why News Matters” initiative, which supports news literacy programs.
“Headliner, I think, fits really nicely into (the initiative’s) framework,” Gilbert said, “There’s a game-like framework that gives you points and has a leader board and has badges that you can earn for reading and consuming different kinds of news, but in the process of doing it, it makes you more aware of the news you are consuming.”
Gilbert said he thinks merely monitoring personal news consumption can create smarter media consumers. Like exercisers logging trips to the gym or dieters monitoring food intake, he said consumers make better decisions when they pay attention to their habits.
“The very act of recording your behavior makes better choices,” Gilbert said. “I wanted to do the same thing for news.”
Gilbert said his ideas for future versions of the app include an automatic check-in feature and more categories for filing news.
Gilbert has been designing Headliner for several years, often enlisting help from his students. Sisi Wei (Medill ’11) helped Gilbert design Headliner in an independent study class. Wei now works at ProPublica as a news applications developer.
“He is willing to dedicate impossible amounts of time to any students who seek help from him,” Wei said. “That’s something that made a big difference to me.”
Editor’s note: Gilbert sits on the board of Students Publishing Co.
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Twitter: @MedillJordan
