The Local Reporter

The Local Reporter arrived before anyone called her, which she describes as standard practice and which everyone else would describe differently if the camera were pointed somewhere else. The microphone is active. Derek, the camera operator, has the shot locked — Derek always has the shot locked, this is simply what Derek does — and the segment is being framed with the gravitas of someone covering something historians will reference. The style guide does not permit the word 'ankle.' She has filed a formal challenge. The challenge has been archived. She is filing a challenge about the archive timeline. Adults in the area who were not previously standing up straight are now standing up straight. The food court is a story. The story is being filed.

In-game, the Local Reporter is the visibility unit: the character who makes hiding harder by broadcasting movement. Small-scale narration notes bite activity and orients other NBCs toward it. At medium, a Live Incident Zone appears — a broadcast radius where camera coverage amplifies NBC reactions and slows Biters caught in frame. The stretch goal ability, Breaking Alert, briefly reveals any active Biter on the map: the single most directly anti-Biter ability in the game, requiring the Biter to have been biting enough to earn the segment. Biters who eat one ankle and disappear for ninety seconds won't trigger it. Biters who commit to the bit entirely will, and they will deserve what happens next.