Trying to make ajax call but not working

I am trying to have DataTables make an ajax call to a route that responds with JSON. The route looks exactly as expected but DataTables is not making a call to the route to get the data. It works fine with the basic setup. In developer tools on network I don't see it making the call. What am I doing wrong? code listed:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#example').DataTable({
        "processing": true,
        "serverSide": true,
        "ajax": "/json/nightjoblog/index"

          }
        });
} );