R.V.D.'s guide to journalism!

[Jguytriple5]

 

I know what you're going trough, you started a round of SS13 hoping to do all kinds of cool shit like killing aliens and stuff. But then you suddenly see yourself in science without any idea what you're doing boring yourself to death, or in the library without any intent of actually printing any books. Do you want other people not doing anything important to know what is going on around the station while doing something interesting yourself?

 

[spoiler2]THEN THIS IS THE GUIDE FOR YOU![/spoiler2]

 

First things first

Okay now, first things first, you need a camera. You can easily get a camera at the artvend machine near arrivals. If you are infact a scientist with nothing better to do, wait for science to be able to develop digital cameras. Next up, you need to actually create your newspaper channel on the newscasters found around the station, there are two types of newspapers, satire and informative ones, i'm only covering the informative ones. A flashlight is also a nice thing to have for when you're exploring maintenance. And if you're the librarian, what are you reading this part for, you're already set up with the stuff in your office you fool!

 

Information

No journalist gets a story without any information. If you turn out to be an IAA agent too bored to fill out forms, you already have all the info you need to become a journalist! You have the security channel, the most informative thing on the station. If anything's going down on the station and the security team is only a tad competent, it'll be easy to get good stories from this source alone. Now if you do not have acces to the security channel there is two things you can do, ask a high up for a security headset or get a security member to be your informant. If none of these two work, see paragraph 4. It's rare but gets less rare when your newspaper starts being read by more people, but you can also obtain information by people just telling you. If they think you're a good way of spreading information, or gathering information, they'll tell all they have seen or heard to you without you even asking.

 

Investigation

As a journalist you should always make sure your information is correct, and that you know the whole story. You should do this by investigating the place that your informant tells you you should go. For example, if there's talks of a murderer on the security channel and they tell eachother that the criminal has commited most crimes in science, go to science and see what there is to see. If you for example find a blood trail, follow it, you might find information that was hidden to the rest of the station before this moment. As journalist you ofcourse take photos of everything remotely interesting.

If you have no information at all you should just explore the station and keep walking around without real aim, take mental notes of everything and everyone you see. If you see two people having an interesting conversation, don't mind to stick close to them and listen in on their valuable information. When you actually have done some investigation and have a remote idea of what's going on it's time for the next step.

 

Questioning

When you are nearly ready to write a story and have all the info you require, ask around a bit. But no aimless questions like "what happened here?" but more direct questions containing info you only know about if you have done some investigation like "So, what do you know about -insert murder suspect-'s buisiness in this department?" Or "Have you heard that -insert victim- was killed?". The latter works mighty fine on Heads of departments that don't know what's going on in their department. If they give you their information you can start doing the fun kind of questioning, the "how are you going to respond to -insert situation-?" kind of questions. Asking this to any head will cause them to give you some fun statements to use in your newspaper. And i end this paragraph on questioning with the golden rule of asking questions, remember they are only going to give the information they want you to know. This is exactly the reason you should investigate before you question, if you know more then they think you know, they can't fool you.

 

Writing

Ah yes, the only thing that seperates the journalist from the detective. When writing an article you should always remember how a newspaper article looks.

 

-title-

-Information- + -statements-

-ending-

 

If your article doesn't look like this it isn't an interesting read. As title you should always do something that summarizes the whole story, but makes it sound more dramatic. It should be more interesting than the real story so people read it, but no word of it can be a lie.

 

For the middle we have two parts, information and statements. In the information part you will write all the information YOU have gathered and YOU know are true. Because everybody but you can lie, you should always say who stated what. For example, about this the RD said "we're doing everything we can to prevent this in the future". Make sure to only state facts, and statements, but none of your bullshit opinions, nobody wants those in the middle of a good informative story.

 

Now to your opinions, these should always be at the ending and leave room for the reader to think about. This is the reason i always end my articles in questions, they make you think about what you just read and you start getting your own ideas about the subject. This is the best part because if you ask the right questions provided that you have enough facts about the subject in the middle bit, the crew might believe you over command. When the crew starts to believe you more than any other source on the station people will give you more information about things they have seen or heard on the station.

 

Traitoring

I see you asking yourself, i'm a traitor, my round is already interesting now, i don't want to set up a newspaper. But what if you get converted in the middle of the shift? well that means that people already take your information for fact. This means that you can lie to the crew, but if you lie too often the crew will see that you aren't a reliable source. I once convinced the captain of the station, yes you heard that right, the captain of the station to blow up the AI. I had given nothing but true information the whole round, but at the ending of every article i suggested in a very subtle manner that the AI was behind all the crimes. I had been a traiter from the beginning of the shift and my only objectives were to destroy the AI and leave without getting caught. And i did destroy that precious AI by just being a damn good journalist. There is however one clear unwritten rule that states "Make the real articles and fake articles noticably different in a way" This rule isn't really punishble if not followed but i follow it and nobody has even known my subtle difference between real and fake articles.

 

 

 

So folks, there you have it. A real nice guide on how to make proper in game newspapers, and also how to be a good detective, because basicly paragraph 2 and 3 were about being a detective. I hope i won't be getting those civilians every shift trying to piggy back on my fame, they can now make their own newspapers. I hope this guide was helpfull and if it was i hope to see loads of more newspapers on the station other than my trusted NSS Cyberiad Crime Watch.

 

TL;DR

Find the truth, ask people specificly about this truth, collect statements about the subject, write articles with facts.

 

[tastyfish]

 

I love these guides for RP roles.

 

One mechanical thing I'd like to point out, if people don't know, is that the IAA has full access to the security newscaster, meaning they have access to delist feeds and censor articles. Thus, an IAA journalist basically has immunity to write anything, as long as they're not jailed, and also can shutdown other people's feeds with almost impunity because command generally doesn't generally care if somebody gets delisted as far as I've experienced.

 

Also it's important to note that you can only create one feed, and if you get delisted, you've lost your one newsfeed allocation. So, don't post butts in your otherwise serious newspaper. (Also, don't make posting public for your newsfeed, you can't undo that or delete other people's posts, unless your security or an IAA.)

 

Edit: The Captain, HoP, blueshield, and NT Rep also get a security newscaster, so the paragraph about censoring access applies to them too.

 

[Threeinone]

I remember trying journalism before I stuck my nose to deep and was killed in a firefight with no-one to clone me. I might try it again now.