Priest wrote:Would reporter for a local newspaper (linked to the university perhaps?) be acceptable? After all if it was caused by a lightning strike that would be local news.
Thought this may be of help Priest. There are three newspapers in Arkham as follows:-
1: Arkham Gazette: 350 W Hyde Street. Arkham's first newspaper, the Gazette was established in 1806 by Aaron Crane, its first editor and publisher. It began daily publication in 1894; before then it was a fat weekly. It is still owned by the Crane family; Michael Crane, 62 years old, is managing editor.
The Gazette is published at 3 A.M. six mornings a week; Sunday papers are run Saturday afternoon at 2 P.M. and distributed that evening. Though it has happened five times since 1900, it takes a big event for a Gazette special edition. Issues currently cost 4 cents, since it's a bigger paper than the Advertiser, publishing about 20% more text daily than its Arkham rival. Sunday issues cost 7 cents.
Of the two Arkham newspapers, the Gazette is the more conservative, featuring town and valley news to the virtual exclusion of international events. It is specially notable for its large number of county correspondents which report family visits and other crossroads events. It has never missed an edition in 122 years of publishing. Willard Peck: the Gazette's chief reporter, 44 years old. Peck's family is of long standing in Arkham.
2: Arkham Advertiser: 389 W Armitage Street. The Arkham Bulletin, the forerunner of the Advertiser, first published in 1821. In 1828, the paper changed hands and was renamed The Miskatonic Valley Gleaner. The Gleaner appeared for four years, then was sold, reappearing as the Arkham Advertiser.
The Advertiser is the more aggressive of the two Arkham papers, even printing extras and what Gedney calls "five-PMs" for Arkham, when news dictates. The Advertiser tends to print more features (especially about technical and scientific wonders, which Gedney favors), comics, and ethnically-slanted international news than does the Gazette.
The regular morning edition runs off at 3 A.M. If news warrants, revised editions—extras—run at 8 A.M., or 11:30 A.M., or 4:30 P.M. These later editions are in small quantity, for local street-sale distribution only. A story is rarely big enough to warrant four editions in one day. Only one edition each appears Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday edition is run and distributed Saturday night. Daily editions cost 3 cents; the Sunday paper costs 7 cents. Special editions are printed for the Fourth of July, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, with as many display ads as Gedney can sell to local businesses.
The publisher and managing editor is 42-year-old Harvey Gedney, whose family has owned the paper since 1832. He employs two full-time reporter/editors, a secretary, a linotypist, a caseman, two pressmen, a circulation manager, an advertising manager, and part-time help and correspondents (stringers) as needed.
3: M.U. Cryer: The Miskatonic University Crier: its enemies call it the Sniveler. The weekly student newspaper's managing editor is Howard Penobscott. He's a Henry Luce fan and an annoying young trouble-maker. Skinny, habitually winking through his wire-rim glasses, Penobscott prefers editorializing to journalism, and glories in tweaking the school administration. Clashes with his faculty advisor and censor, Swanson Ames, are on-going. Penobscott enjoys nothing more than slipping something controversial by Ames, an oblique and distracted man. Even the fair-minded University President Wainscott finds it impossible to like Penobscott, though he admits that his young nemesis is ingenious.