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Red Shirt Reporter: Difference between revisions
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[[File:cloverfield-viral-video_9242.jpg|frame| [[Cloverfield|Oil tanker exploding from mysterious causes you say?]] [[Genre Blind|And I get to cover it?]] [[Uriah Gambit|So soon after the unfortunate incident with your wife?]] [[Genre Blind|Where do I sign up?!]]]]
Who is out in 70 mile per hour winds, lashing rains and certain death? It's the Redshirt Reporter. When people need to know about how to get out of a flaming building, who is running through the building? The Redshirt Reporter. They are often seen wearing a rain slicker, amid flying debris, [[Going for the Big Scoop]]. Often ends up on [[Dead Line News]].
The Redshirt Reporter is the man (or woman -- a Redshirt Reporter is about as likely to be a woman as a man) who is doing the stand-up, on-the-scene live report from someplace that's so insanely dangerous or unpleasant that anyone with a lick of sense wouldn't be there.
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]].
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* ''[[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).
* A one-off reporter in ''[[Death Note]]'' - right after the Second Kira just killed a lot of reporters who disagreed with Kira - deliberately imperils his own life, John Hancock-style.
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* ''[[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...
* In [[Command
** 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.
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== Real Life ==
* On MSNBC's coverage of Hurricane Ike, a reporter named Janet lampshaded this trope by declaring loudly that she was perfectly safe.
* There was an incident where Ed Hughes, the late anchor for Norfolk, VA CBS affiliate WTKR, was covering a hurricane at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
* Jim Cantore. Watch The Weather Channel ANY time there's a hurricane making landfall and you'll see this guy screaming into his microphone. He is ''so reliable'' about being where the weather is worst that there's a joke that if you see Jim Cantore in your home town, it's past time to have evacuated.
* During one Hurricane hitting Maryland, a local reporter was broadcasting from Ocean City and stood near the completely flooded beach to give an idea of what the storm surge was doing. When he was nearly finished with his report, a wave crashed over the beach barrier, drenching the reporter, who deadpanned "Back to you" and returned us to a laughing news room.
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