Intrepid Reporter/Playing With
Basic Trope: A reporter who actively seeks out stories, rather than waiting for them to come to her.
- Straight: Heather notices a supernatural incident and digs into the mystery so she can get a scoop.
- Exaggerated: Heather risks life, limb and career on a daily basis to bring in the hottest, most exciting news stories.
- Downplayed: Heather seeks out scoops, but refuses to do anything illegal or life-threatening to get them.
- Justified: The newspaper Heather works for gives cash bonuses for exciting front page stories, "and a girl's gotta eat."
- Inverted: Heather gets all her stories by rewriting official press releases.
- Subverted: Heather pretends to be an Intrepid Reporter in the stories she files, but actually goes no further than the hotel bar.
- Double Subverted: She overhears criminals conspiring in the next booth and winds up actively investigating a story anyhow.
- Parodied: Heather is an energetic, adventurous reporter...for the Dinkyville Weekly Advertiser, which is printed in a rural area where Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here. Her big scoop of the week is usually which 4-H members won blue ribbons in livestock contests.
- Zig Zagged: Heather would like to get big scoops all the time, but often is assigned to rewrite press releases or cover creampuff stories that don't require her to be intrepid.
- Averted: No reporters in the story do anything proactive to get news.
- Enforced: "We need a character to dig into the mystery in this story, but the police are ignoring the incident and it's not really a job for a private eye. How about we have a reporter do it?"
- Lampshaded: "You reporters just can't leave well enough alone, can you?"
- Invoked: Da Editor offers cash bonuses to reporters who bring in exciting (but printable) scoops for the front page.
- Exploited: A whistleblower sends a mysterious message to Heather in hopes of getting her to investigate wrongdoing at his company.
- Defied: The publisher of Heather's newspaper orders reporters to stick to rewriting press releases so as not to offend the advertisers. This is enforced with threats of dismissal if the reporter is caught being proactive.
- Discussed: "Another big scoop for Heather? At this rate, she'll be a shoo-in for reporter of the year."
- Conversed: "This show is sure exciting, but isn't the reporter a little too reckless? If Heather gets killed, who's going to write the story?"
There's something strange going on down at the waterfront! Go back to Intrepid Reporter and get me the scoop!