Intrepid Reporters in Literature.
By Author:
- Evelyn Waugh:
- Scoop features Henry Boot placed, unwillingly and ill-equipped, in this role, plus a number of variations on the theme as supporting characters.
- Unconditional Surrender contains numerous variations ranging from Ian Klibannock to the absurd Sneifetz in Jugoslavia — all wholly untrustworthy.
- Gregory McDonald's Irwin Maurice "Fletch" Fletcher is a giant of Intrepid Reporterdom.
- Kate Reed, in several stories by Kim Newman, is an intrepid reporter in Victorian London. She debuted in Anno Dracula, where she gets involved in the hunt for Jack the Ripper. In "The Gypsies in the Wood", she's sent to cover the opening of a faerie-themed children's attraction and gets involved in rescuing a child abducted by actual fairies. In Seven Stars, she gets involved in the search for a missing mummy that may or may not be carrying the Curse of the Pharaoh.
- Mystery writer Michael Connelly has written three mystery novels focusing on Jack McEvoy, a crime reporter who usually finds himself wrapped up in murder investigations. In The Poet, The Scarecrow, and Fair Warning, Jack finds himself chasing killers while simultaneously battling uncooperative cops and FBI agents as well as his own editors and other reporters trying to horn in on his stories.
By Title:
- Joe Buckley from 1634: The Galileo Affair finds himself to be the only trained journalist in an era dominated by propagandists, and sets out to Venice to find good stories. He's implied to actually be pretty good. Unfortunately, his name is Joe Buckley, and he's in a Baen book. He gets killed by Michel Ducos after getting too close to said villain's real plot.
- Susan Ward from the Archie Sheridan series. This gets her into trouble frequently, and while she may be intrepid she is also very much not a fighter.
- Bill and Chris, in Jane Lindskold's Athanor series, are led by an anonymous tipster to investigate a mysterious philanthropist going by "Arthur Pendragon." Once they realize just how big of a secret they've stumbled onto, though, they decide to change careers.
- Stephanie Kovacs in the Babylon Rising series. She is quickly promoted to Dark Mistress of the Corrupt Corporate Executive who is trying to discredit the hero.
- Ellie in Daddy's Little Girl is a journalist who thoroughly investigates every nook and cranny of her stories before sending them to a publisher. She is currently working on a book about the murder of her sister Andrea, wanting to prove definitively that Rob Westerfield - who she helped convict as a child - killed her.
- William De Worde and his Girl Friday, Sacharissa Cripslock, fill this role in several Discworld novels, starting with The Truth. As the only news reporters in one of the most newsworthy cities in the world, they keep very busy.
- Larry Niven's Draco Tavern series includes Mark Taper, who is pretty much this. The name "Taper" is itself a Shout-Out to the use of the term "taper" to denote a roving news cameraman in some of Niven's earlier stories.
- Susan Rodriguez of The Dresden Files (book version). Unfortunately, her intrepidness led to lasting physical harm for her.
- Rock in G. K. Chesterton's "The Scandal of Father Brown". Unfortunately, he has a few blind spots, resulting in his Malicious Slander of Father Brown, until the priest clears up a few issues.
- In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Raoul Duke was with his attorney Dr.Gonzo (who may have been Samoan) to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race. However, upon arriving in Vegas Duke and his attorney Dr.Gonzo (who may have been Samoan) found it to be imperative to get to the bottom of the American dream by any means necessary. (Including fraud, forgery, liberal drug consumption, and bribing maids to act as moles for hotel drug cartels)
- Flawed: Lisa Life is an underground reporter who writes articles meant to garner support for Celestine, dedicated to reporting the truth and unafraid of Craven's influence over the media. Lisa Life is actually Pia, the reporter assigned to interview the Flawed, deciding to help Celestine while not getting caught by Craven.
- The Fragility of Bodies: The Protagonist Verónica became a reporter due to her distaste for injustice and desire to expose corruption to the world, and is willing to go to great lengths to pursue these goals, even if it endangers herself. In the story, this materializes as her going up against The Cartel, and persevering in exposing their schemes despite multiple assassination attempts.
- The Harry Potter books have an antagonist version of the intrepid reporter in the person of Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet. She doesn't let the facts get in the way of a juicy story, going beyond merely ignoring what interviewees actually tell her to actually putting words in their mouths. She's also not above stealing from old ladies.
- Will Farnaby, the viewpoint character of Island, usually covers war-zones and tragedies. He's somewhat sceptical of the Perfect Pacifist People he found himself among, constantly trying to find cracks in their perfection.
- In Death: Nadine Furst, very much. It almost gets her killed in Glory In Death, the second book in the series, thanks to a murderer with an envious grudge against women in the limelight.
- Doremus Jessup of It Can't Happen Here is an Intrepid Editor, publicizing the abuses of America's new fascist government and writing very frank opinion columns about the direction the country is going in. Not surprisingly, he ends up paying a price for this.
- Jack Parlabane from Quite Ugly One Morning, Country of the Blind, Boiling a Frog, Be My Enemy and The Attack of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, all by Christopher Brookmyre.
- Kitty Norville is an Intrepid Radio Talk Show Host who frequently tracks down her own stories and can get way too physically involved in them.
- Cameron "Buck" Williams of the Global Weekly magazine in Left Behind. He's something of a subversion of the trope, as when he discovers evidence of a murderous global conspiracy, Buck makes a Deal with the Devil to quash the story in exchange for his personal safety.
- Humorously enough, this doesn't appear to be intentional. Not only that, but he also ignores the biggest story ever in the process.
- Isabel from The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul is determined to go to the most dangerous parts of the world to expose the biggest stories.
- Murder for the Modern Girl: Vivian Forbes is a passionate reporter who's willing to do independent investigation and go Off the Record for the hottest new story. She ends up helping Ruby, Guy, and Maggie expose the corruption going on in Chicago.
- All the main characters in the Newsflesh trilogy. This is basically the only way to gather news after a Zombie Apocalypse.
- Even in the trilogy, narrator Georgia Mason deserves special mention. She literally values the truth more than her own life.
- Heather Stone, the main character of Newshound, is one of these. Given that much of the story focuses on the operations of a daily newspaper, it's not surprising that most of the extended cast also qualifies.
- Pindakaas en Sushi: Marle, who ends up searching the convention to find the mysterious knight who showed her around.
- Digby Driver in The Plague Dogs is an antagonistic (and downright evil) example. He uses underhanded means to get info, falsifies it when it suits him, spreads panic, and gets the army sent after the protagonists.
- Poster Girl: Rose Parker is a journalist fighting for justice in the dark setting. Most of all it is due to her efforts that innocent children imprisoned for the crimes of their parents are finally released from a ghetto after ten years.
- In Rachel Griffin, Valerie Foxx ("Fearless girl reporter!") is a teenaged version of this, camera included. Also a School Newspaper News Hound—as cover for investigating a murder attempt on herself.
- Sam Holt: Sam's friend Terry Young, who is eager to tackle murder investigations aimed at prominent figures, and who Sam consults both before and after Terry becomes a suspect in his second case.
- Charles Enderby from Agatha Christie's The Sittaford Mystery is the only journalist who managed to crop out an interview with the dead man's best friend, and later comes to the titular village where the dead man came from to investigate the case further, alongside fellow Amateur Sleuth Emily Trefusis.
- Smaller & Smaller Circles has Joanna Bonifacio, who (with good reason) not only seems to delight in exposing Attorney Arcinas' gaffes but also chases after the priests' investigation, even lending a hand with her connections, in order to grab onto a good story for her news show. This being the Philippines, however, working in media is an especially dangerous job—her father ends up dying when he went out investigating one night and never came back.
- Michael Liberty from the StarCraft novel "Liberty's Crusade" begins the novel in serious trouble — i.e., corrupt politician and mob bosses potentially assassinating him trouble — over his exposés on Confederate politics, which gets him sent out to the Colonies. His attempts to discover the truth don't stop there, of course, and almost get him killed at Anthem Base before he decides to tag along with the Sons of Korhal.
- Documentarian Hallis Saper in Starfighters of Adumar fits into this role, especially as the story progresses. She does have a background in "sludgenews" (and learned several of her sneakier techniques from that time), but her strong sense of ethics directed her toward a more legitimate journalism career.
- Star Wars Legends:
- In Jedi Apprentice, Keets Freely tried to expose Palpatine's corrupt ties to the Separatist during the Clone Wars, causing a bounty to be placed on his head after the Empire was established.
- Den Dhur, from the Medstar and Coruscant Nights novels was a war correspondent unafraid to get into the thick of things and later a Rebel against the empire.
- Thebe and the Angry Red Eye has a Science Fiction variant of the trope. Tout is a young journalist who has already worked in space several times and wins a lottery to participate in a voyage to The Moons of Jupiter. She's also something of a Communications Officer, maintaining contact with Earth and corresponding with 58 different school kids.
- Whodunit Mysteries has Joshua Cole, who often has to go out and search for new information about news stories that have already been reported on, which more often than not, leads to him needing to solve some mysteries for himself.
- In the Zeroes series, Sonia Sonic is a local blogger who skyrocketed to fame when she took video of Scam using his superpower during a bank robbery, and who has been investigating the activities of Zeroes ever since.
