PLAYING THE NEWS profiles the first video game company to consider itself a legitimate news organization, taking us from the company's Manhattan offices, equipped with satellite technology, to the frontlines of the war in Iraq. The documentary features interviews with Kuma executives and designers, a media studies professor, a New Technology writer for The Economist, a war correspondent, and several video gamers, who download new episodes monthly and who can play separately or link up online with others to play as a squad.

Can such video games play a serious journalistic role or do they misconstrue the real nature of war for voyeuristic thrills? Do they represent the future of journalism or the dangerous blurring of news and entertainment? Can we look forward to an Abu Ghraib video game?

PLAYING THE NEWS is a provocative examination of whether video games are a revolutionary new way to engage young people in current events or an unethical marketing gimmick that merely seeks to exploit war.