Red Shirt Reporter: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

If it's played for comedy, it may be that his boss hates him and is trying to get him killed, or it may be that the reporter is too dumb to realize the danger. In these cases, he usually survives. Played for drama, the reporter is "the best reporter we've got!", and is usually aware of how dangerous it is. This type is also much more likely to end up dead in fiction. A truly [[Memetic Badass|legendary]] reporter is even more likely to get bumped off, for [[The Worf Effect|various reasons]].

It's a trope that was [[Truth in Television|lifted straight from real-life]]; long before there was television news, reporters were going into (or staying in) dangerous situations in order to get the story.

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'': The reporters investigating the mysterious disappearance of Ginger Town's inhabitants ; they get to suffer the same fate, i.e. being sucked out and absorbed by [[Big Bad|Cell]].

** Though later on subverted by the reporters covering the Cell Games, as they somehow manage to survive (And fully believe [[Fake Ultimate Hero|Mr. Satan]] saved them).

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Volcano]]'' has this in one part, with a news reporter standing right up against the line of barriers that are barely containing the volcanic lava.

* In the 1998 American [[Godzilla]] movie, there are around three or four unnamed or unimportant reporters who buzz around Godzilla during his rampage.

* In ''[[Battle: Los Angeles]]'', the reporters on the beach who are covering the "meteor shower" are among the first to be gunned down when the aliens emerge from the surf.

* In ''[[Predator]] 2'', a female reporter is near the shoot-out war zone between the police and Colombian drug dealers.

* In ''[[Three Kings]]'', some Iraqi soldiers forced a female journalist to leave, at gunpoint.

 

== Literature ==

* In [[Dave Barry]]'s novel ''[[Tricky Business]]'', the local Miami news station sends a reporter out to cover a tropical storm. She stands in water near downed power lines. [[It Gets Worse]] when the station starts sending vehicles out, finally culminating in a helicopter crash. {{spoiler|Ultimately, nine of the station's reporters are dead, representing 100% of the people killed by the storm.}} Both a [[Parody]] and an [[Exaggerated Trope]].

** Henderson, possibly the earliest example of this trope in fiction, is also the [[Trope Codifier]], so much so that his character was carried over in Orson Welles' radio show and the 1953 version, if not the 2005 version. The book also ''subverts'' the trope: the narrator himself is also a journalist, though he does come close to death on more than a few occasions.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* An episode of ''[[Primeval]]'' features reporters who aren't smart enough to run away when a Giganotosaurus (think ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|T. rex]]'', only bigger) rampages through an airport.

* The Re-Imagined Battlestar Galactica has a brief scene of Baltar watching the disjointed news reports of the Cylon attack. The 'man on the street reporter' hears the boom, feels the wind, then his feed and the feed from the news studio cut to static.

* Parodied on ''[[The Daily Show]]''. In their January 2012 Indecision coverage there is a skit about the upcoming South Carolina primary including an anchor in a windstorm and a female anchor covered in blood screaming about the horrors of the campaign.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' has utilized both "Asian Reporter" Trisha Takanawa and "Black-U-Weather" Ollie Williams in this role.

'''Diane Simmons''': Thank you, Tricia. Stay tuned for further-- (''hit by a flying guy'') }}

* Lance Thunder of [[Danny Phantom]] always gets put on 'Ghost Watch'- e.g. filming in streets overwhelmed by ghosts, desperately screaming "I'm just a ''weatherman''!"

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' gave us Darla Gratch (Channel 2 News), who has a tendency to get badly hurt wherever she reports. [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Good thing she's a robot]].

* Anna Hutchens in ''[[Odium]]'', very excited to find herself reporting from the middle of a monster-filled city. Just think of the ratings! Though it's probably a good thing that your team found her just as she was cornered by monsters. She joins your team for a while, but fights about as well as you'd expect from a reporter...

** The GDI reporters oddly avert it though. One of them is in Washington when Philadelphia comes crashing down, the other in Vancouver, mere meters away from Nod forces and right in the attack zone of Vertigo bombers. They both survive.

* In Final Fantasy 7 when the pilar collapses, a reporter can be seen reacting just before the screen goes to static.

* Leading up to the release of ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', the game's in-character twitter feed featured a series of live-tweets from Emily Wong, who was effectively the reporter-on-the-scene for {{spoiler|The Reaper Invasion of Earth. Her last tweet indicated that she was mortally wounded and about to [[Taking You with Me|ram a Reaper with her skyvan.]]}}

 

== Real Life ==

* On MSNBC's coverage of Hurricane Ike, a reporter named Janet lampshaded this trope by declaring loudly that she was perfectly safe.

* Memphis' Action Five News had a series during the 90s featuring a reporter demonstrating how to get out of a flooded car, a flaming building and many other dangerous situations.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:News Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]