V Leonard

Veronica / Vasily Leonard

TV reporter from the local Fox News affiliate

Gender: Male Current Quality: Good

In Game

Plots: Breaking Story, Election, IRA Bombing, The Campus Fire, The Break-in, Political Money

Bluesheets:

Character Hint

You are Vasily Leonard, on-air reporter for Violet City's Fox News affiliate. You've been doing this job for a pretty long time, and you are good at it -- making sure people know the real truth about what's going on. Some people take you to task for being too strident, but to hell with them: the old-school press never had the nerve to dig beneath the surface and show all the mud down there.

And it is days like today that make you love this job. Sure, the shooting was tragic and horrible, but now you get to figure out what the hell happened, and why. What sort of dirty dealing caused this kid to flip out? And of course, all the candidates for Senate are here, so there will be lots of opportunities for interviews and grilling, live on camera...

Character Sheet

You are Vasily Leonard, reporter at KVFX, Violet City's Fox News station, and this is the sort of week that reminds you why you love being in the news business.

Things have been busy enough because of campaign season: there's nothing like a contested primary to raise the volume and get people interested in an election. Senator Newbold has been in office for 24 years, the longest of any major elected official in Vermillion, so it shouldn't surprise him that someone decided to challenge for the seat. And Representative Ronit is fun: passionate, opinionated and outspoken in a way that you haven't seen much around here. Sure, you've had other Tea Party candidates in the past five years, but none with a serious chance at such a high-profile office. He is getting people fired up in a way that you haven't seen in a while yet.

Of course, your personal loyalties are a bit torn here, since Nika Stanimir is Newbold's campaign manager this time around. You've been friends with him pretty much forever, since you were in college together.

Heh -- it makes you a little sad to remember how naive you all were back then. "Violet Justice", you called yourselves, certain that you were going to make the world a better place by tearing down The Bad Old System and replacing it with a fairer and juster one. There were a bunch of members, but the ringleaders were mainly you, Nika and Jeri Ferdinand. You carried signs, and protested any "establishment" figures who might come to campus for speeches or such. It was all good fun, until the day Nika carried it too far, and burned down the Campus Admin building.

As you recall, you were all fired up about a visit by President Bush (the first one), planning all sorts of protests. And then, the night before the visit, Nika comes to your dorm room, all wide-eyed, saying that he had struck "a blow for justice" to show them the power of the people. And within a minute or two, you heard the fire trucks, and just about hit your head against the wall.

Nika wanted the group to take credit for the fire (you've always wondered what he was smoking that night), but Jeri was adamantly opposed, and you had to agree. It was one thing to fight for justice, but you didn't want to get kicked out of school -- your parents would have had your hide.

The cops immediately rounded up the bunch of you as the most obvious suspects, but at Jeri's recommendation, you all stonewalled, claiming you knew nothing. You didn't think Nika's denials were all that convincing, but he hadn't been stupid enough to leave any clear evidence of arson, and they eventually gave up in disgust, sending you back to your dorms with a warning.

After that -- well, Violet Justice just kind of fell apart, much to the relief of the powers that be at the school. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the fire (it was after hours, so the building was deserted), but everyone was just too embarrassed by the whole thing. You all graduated, and moved on, although all of you kept your passion.

You and Nika wound up drifting more towards the political right as the years went on: the Democrats kept proving themselves so inept and corrupt, and the Republicans were promoting a much more positive vision of a strong America that could actually get things done. He went into political lobbying, and eventually fell in with the NRA. (Which somehow didn't surprise you at all -- he clearly has a fondness for things that go Bang.) Meanwhile, you took your journalism degree and, after a stint working for the local papers, wound up at Fox News as an on-air reporter. The two of you have stayed in touch, and

The only one who never really grew up turned out to be Jeri. Oh, she hides the passion behind a politician's smile, but you know that Mayor Ferdinand is still a crusader deep down, desperate to break down the walls of the establishment. You kind of feel sorry for her, truth to tell: she still doesn't get that all the best intentions (and tax money) in the world doesn't necessarily fix anything.

People often talk about what their "big break" was, but you made yours through hard work. After most of ten years as a low-level journalistic drone, you wanted more. So you began to network hard, all over town, telling people that if they heard anything interesting, to pass it on to you. And after a few months of that, you got a tip that you knew was juicy: a report that Detective O'Malley of the Violet City Police had fled his native Ireland after helping commit a bombing that killed several people. It was perfect -- a trusted person in public life with a dark secret, who had committed a terrible crime and gotten away with it. A month later, public pressure had driven him out of the force, and folks began to associate you as the face of hard-hitting news in Violet City.

Nowadays, you split your time between the anchor desk and being out in the field. You know you can't keep it up forever, but you want to get as many years as you can in the thick of things before moving into the cushy job of full-time anchor. And your ears pricked up when you heard the name "Seamus O'Malley" associated with this morning's shooting. A relation of Detective O'Malley? Does violence run in the family? Oh, yeah -- you can smell a hot story in the making...

Who You Know

Roger Forrester: The stodgy reporter from CBS. He makes a big deal about "journalistic values" and all that, but you long since decided that he just doesn't have the courage of his convictions. (And you are really fed up with his high-handed attitude towards you, but you both stay polite in public.)
Unfortunately, somebody recently put him onto the track of the Campus Admin fire, and he has been getting all the good press lately, hammering the Mayor over it. The funny part is that he doesn't seem to know that you were involved, much less Nika. Really, you'd kind of love to be right there, helping take Jeri down a peg, but you can't risk her decided to come clean about the whole mess and mention your involvement -- while Jeri might be a wimpy liberal, she wouldn't be above sticking it to you if you push it.
Reagan Newbold: The Senator from the great state of Vermillion, and Nika's boss. Really, a fairly decent person, if a bit of a RINO sometimes. Always makes for a good election, though. Last time he was running, you got a hot tip (officially anonymously, although obviously from the Newbold campaign office) that his Democratic opponent had once been arrested for growing pot, over in Wisconsin. You played that one for weeks, and Newbold pretty much sailed away with the election. Fun stuff: what might he have up his sleeve this time?
Nika Stanimir: Your old friend from college: a bit hot-headed, and always a true believer in something, he is currently working as Senator Newbold's campaign manager. Not where you would have expected him to wind up, but good for him. At least he hasn't set any fires lately, that you know of.
He is pressing you to support the Newbold campaign more, but you're torn.
Jeri Ferdinand: Mayor of Violet City, your old friend the radical has had to settle down and make all those nasty compromises that being a Good Electable Democrat requires.
Her most recent initiative has been to rebrand Violet City as a "tech hub", which has won her a lot of support and political money from the big tech companies. So the other players are starting to hit her for that, with ads making her out to be in the pocket of the greedy new monopolists. That's kind of rich; she must be squirming.
Maeve Caoilinn: Homicide detective with the VCPD. You've always found her to be a competent but tight-lipped pain in the butt, which gets in the way of the news.
Rhona Finlay: A beat cop who is much more talkative than Caoilinn is. Of course, a beat cop doesn't know nearly as many interesting details as a detective, but still -- someone always worth flattering and pumping for information. You've met her on stories a few times, and she is always a bit of a gushing fan, which is always useful to have on the force.
Bjorn Ari: The even more useful member of the police is the CSI, though. He came to you a few months ago, to quietly tell you about an investigation into a robbery, not yet public, at a tech firm a few blocks from here. It was a lovely scoop -- all the other news outlets were left scrambling for information. Better yet, he wasn't even demanding anything in return: far as you can tell, he is just ambitious, and setting up a personal network for when he decides to move up the chain. Well, you can certainly work with that.
Christina Nikolaus: A wet-behind-the-ears leftie blogger nutjob. You have to admire the kid's enthusiasm, but she can't really believe that blogs are going to replace TV, can she? And she needs to grow a thicker skin -- you've had a few online flamewars with her that were way too easy to goad.
Tagh O'Malley: Good old Detective O'Malley. Is he the gift that keeps on giving to you?
Fred Ronit: State Representative Ronit is passionate, eager and about as conservative as you've ever seen. You really kind of like him style. Not that you have to make a public declaration of support or anything, but you do sort of have to decide whether you'd prefer Ronit or Newbold to win: it makes a real difference in how you construct polls and such.
Simon Mercer: Some kind of shady political operative who keeps getting everybody's knickers in a bunch. You hear rumors of "The Database of Doom", full of dirt -- ooooh, scary! He ran the Newbold campaign last time, and is managing Ferdinand's this time around, so you have to at least give him credit for brass balls and a complete lack of principles.

GM Notes

When sie was a young and ambitious reporter, sie broke the story about how the Violet police force had in their employ a cop who had been an IRA terrorist before he moved to the US -- Tagh O'Malley. Sie turned it into a real crusade, and eventually got the police to fire O'Malley. Hir bosses at the station were impressed, and began giving hir more responsibilities, eventually winding up as a prominent on-air newscaster. In a way, the O'Malley family has made hir career.

Has been working with N Stanimir for many years now. They both trended to the right after college, and decided that their careers in media and politics could support each other.

He is personally fairly mixed about this election. Fox management is strongly behind F Ronit, and him personal leanings tend that way as well, but Nika is strongly encouraging him to support Senator Newbold. For now, he is keeping him options open.

Member of: Media