R Forrester
Reva / Roger Forrester
TV reporter from the local CBS affiliate
In Game
Bluesheets:
Character Hint
You are Roger Forrester, reporter at Violet City's CBS affiliate, and you pride yourself as being the best at your job. It may not be trendy, but you take pride in being an "old school" reporter: finding out the truth to the best of your ability, holding all of the politicians' feet to the fire (even the ones like Mayor Ferdinand, who you rather respect), and keeping the public informed without all the shouting and bias that these newbies seem to prefer.
Character Sheet
You are Roger Forrester, lead reporter for KVCT, Violet City's CBS affiliate. You're a bit old for in-the-field reporting -- that grey sneaking gradually into your hair is pretty conspicuous against all those 30-something kids you're up against -- but you know that experience matters in this business.
Nowadays, they label you as "old school", and they mean it as pejorative, but you wear it as a badge of pride. You are old-school, coming from a time when journalists didn't try to slant the story for personal or political gain, and fought any attempts from above to bias you towards their patrons or advertisers. It isn't that a reporter should be devoid of his own opinions, but he should scrupulously examine those opinions, as faithfully as a scientist would, always checking that he isn't losing sight of the truth. You owe a duty to the public, and moreover you owe a duty to the Truth. The young and ironic may mock it, but there is such a thing as objective truth, and your job is to seek it out and make people aware of it.
Not that you chase ambulances or stand out in blizzards any more, but you've established yourself as the best political reporter this city has, holding every politician's feet to the fire when you need to. It isn't that you dislike them -- actually, you quite like and respect most of the government in Violet City and in Vermillion more generally -- but you've learned from hard experience that the art of politics is largely an art of half-truths and shadings, so people like you need to shine a light on them.
The big story of the year, of course, is the Senatorial election, which is getting ever-louder, with the airwaves full of so many advertisements that you worry about them driving away your viewers. In the grand scheme of things it isn't an unusually nasty election, but as the primaries draw near everyone is beginning to take off the gloves and go at it bare-knuckled. Money is pouring in from all directions and the PACs are taking out their own independent ads, which always makes things nastier.
Not that the election is the be-all and end-all of the news, much though Fox News probably wishes it was. You still take point on a lot of the most important breaking news stories, which is why you are here today -- something about a shooting at Decameron Enterprises, in which Roger Cameron was killed. That's a real pity: you didn't know him well, but he seemed a decent sort.
Who You Know
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Reagan Newbold: The four-term incumbent Senator for Vermillion. He has usually struck you as a decent, fairly middle-of-the-road Republican, at least by post-Reagan standards -- what they call a member of the "Establishment Wing" of the party nowadays. The people over at Fox have hung that around his neck as an insult, although you don't see it that way. Since he has been in his job for most of your career, you've wound up knowing each other pretty well, and even consider each other friends to a fair degree, driven by a fair amount of mutual respect.
That said, he is still a politician, and not to be given a pass. The current story swirling around him is the Modern American Freedom PAC, which is more shadowy than average and has been buying airtime like there was an infinite amount of it, generally backing him in coded terms. There are lots of theories swirling around them: big oil? Big pharma? Probably not one of the evangelical groups -- those would probably back Ronit -- but so far you haven't figured it out.
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Fred Ronit: The inevitable Tea Party maverick, trying to unseat Newbold for the Republican nomination. Part of you admires his apparently sincere passion and drive, but he is a bit too doctrinaire for your tastes, personally.
Actually, now that you think of it, you're pretty sure that he used to be involved with Decameron Enterprises -- he has been bragging in advertisements how he regularly goes to the gun range with Roger Cameron. This has apparently garnered him the NRA's backing, much to Newbold's chagrin.
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Nika Stanimir: Senator Newbold's campaign manager, who used to be the local representative for the NRA. Seems like a decent sort, but is a bit too much the political lobbyist at heart.
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Jeri Ferdinand: Mayor of Violet City, also running for Senate. Generally a decent person, and a pretty sincere liberal. Which is part of her problem: you got a lead from the Ronit campaign a few months ago, linking her to a suspicious fire at Violet City University back when she was a student there in the late 80s -- as far as you can tell, she was a member of a pretty radical left-wing group on campus that got out of hand. Did she set the Campus Administration building on fire in a moment of eager zealousness?
You've wound up as the person pressing this story hardest, which makes you a tad uncomfortable, really -- you don't want to be seen as a shill for the Ronit campaign. But for some reason, Fox News has soft-balled this one, not taking the opportunity to attack the Mayor.
In general, though, she is what you expect from a Democratic Mayor: full of dreams and hopes for making things better, but a little better on the rhetoric than the execution. For example, there was that whole series of segments she did on the homeless last year, going out among them (with camera crews in tow, of course) to talk to them one-on-one and understand their needs better. And to be fair, she did push the City Council to make a few improvements -- opening up a new shelter, putting in place a new methadone clinic -- but it hasn't made much difference in the grand scheme of things.
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Simon Mercer: One of Violet City's most legendary ciphers, reportedly a political schemer and fixer par excellence. He was Newbold's campaign manager six years ago, and it says something about him that he is now running Ferdinand's campaign. People talk in whispers about some "Database of Doom", in which he has accumulated dirt over the years, and which gets unleashed when it is most useful. You're pretty sure that this is all over-hyped, but it still makes for an interesting figure.
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Roger Cameron: The founder and CEO of Decameron Enterprises, a tech firm that has been a prominent employer in Violet City for the better part of 30 years. Originally a model rocketry company, they hit the skids in the late 90s, and nearly went bankrupt -- the only thing that saved them was a warehouse fire during the dry summer of 2000, which resulted in an insurance payout that tided the company over for a while. Since then, they've gone into government contracting, reportedly doing quite a bit of work for the Department of Defense that they can't say anything about.
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Millie Cameron: Roger's wife; you have met her a few times socially, and interviewed both of them a few years ago when you were assigned to do a puff piece on Decameron Enterprises. She seems like a lovely, devoted lady, although you got a distinct sense of restlessness from her.
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Regan Archie: A top local lawyer, who advises a lot of the rich people and companies in Violet City. You interviewed her for a puff piece some time back about the city's law firms and their outsized profits; she seemed like a decent sort, if a bit bland. Not clear what her reason for being here today is, though.
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Robert Gervasio: Hmm -- what is he doing here? You recognize him from that thing on the homeless that Mayor Ferdinand did last year, but this seems like an odd place to find a homeless veteran...
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Vasily Leonard: Your opposite number over at Fox. Sigh. You usually manage to keep a cordial relationship, but he sometimes represents everything you dislike in modern journalism: too eager to find scandal, too biased towards the hard right. You will admit that he is good at finding solid stories and pursuing them hard, but you sometimes wonder about him judgement as to how hard.
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Christina Nikolaus: Your more opposite number, she is one of the newfangled bloggers who consider themselves to be journalists. You don't know her terribly well, but she seems to cross the line between reporting and political advocacy.
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Tagh O'Malley: Now that is interesting. You remember him vaguely, from a story that must have been ten or fifteen years ago -- something about him being a policeman who turned out to have been an IRA bomber in his youth? From the name and age, was today's killer his son? Quite a coincidence...
GM Notes
Is currently prosecuting
The Campus Fire plot, hammering Mayor Ferdinand over it on a regular basis.
Is old friends with
R Newbold, and has helped hir with several election campaigns.
Did a largely friendly segment on Decameron a couple of years ago, including an interview with Roger and Millie. Did mention that the warehouse fire seemed like it turned out to be a remarkable stroke of luck, but Roger brushed it off and he didn't push too hard -- this was supposed to be a softball.
To Do
