Hot Scoop

As depicted by channandeller
"Stop the press! Who is that?"
—The Joker, on photo-journalist Vicki Vale, Batman

Perhaps it's their ability to uncover the truth about evil goings-on. Perhaps it's their brilliant research skills. More likely, it's a desire to do an exposé on them, finding out just what is under that lovely blouse.

Journalists who are attractive, basically.

A popular character in action movies and cop shows, as it's a good way to introduce a love interest who has a plausible reason for following the hero into danger. Sometimes overlaps with Action Girl, though it predates the latter trope's popularity by a good many decades, as it was more acceptable for a woman to be a nosy Boswell than a butt-kicking Battle Babe.

Common characteristics of attractive female journalists are an abundance of "moxie", with "gams-a-plenty" or "legs from here to Kalamazoo".

Can overlap with School Newspaper Newshound if it's set in a school. See also Intrepid Reporter and Going for the Big Scoop... which is not about dating the reporter, but their tendency to seek out danger.

While generally good(ish), a minority of these characters turn out to be true villains. Generally this sort overlaps with The Vamp.

Examples of Hot Scoop include:

Anime and Manga


Comic Books

  • Lois Lane from Superman, who may be one of the earliest examples of the trope.
  • Betty Brant from Spider-Man. Also Norah Winters, who is very, very aware that she falls into this category.
  • Vicky Vale, especially in the 1989 Batman movie, where she is the main female lead and is played by none other than Kim Basinger. The Joker becomes obsessed with her.
  • Iris West and Linda Park from The Flash.
  • Sundra Peale from Nexus. It turned out that she was actually a spy, and working as a reporter was just her cover identity. Nipsy Conniption is a more amoral example of this type.
  • Seccotine from Spirou and Fantasio.
  • Filthy assistants on Transmetropolitan are reporters in training. Nothing about Yelena, but Shannon certainly qualifies because she is, well, a former stripper.


Film

  • Katie Holmes' character in Thank You for Smoking used her attractiveness to get an exclusive interview with Nick Naylor.
  • The Vanity Fair reporter in Iron Man. This is the only reason Tony Stark talks to her in the first place.

Reporter: Do you ever lose an hour's sleep?
Stark: I could lose a few with you.
[[[Cut to Sex]]]

  • Peggy Brandt (Amy Yasbeck) in The Mask.
  • Summer, one of the potential love interests for the main character in Definitely Maybe.
  • Suzanne Stone from To Die For is a good example of the more amoral kind of Hot Scoop.
  • Polly Perkins from Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (2004).
  • In the action movie Metro (1997) Eddie Murphy's cop character is dating a black British photojournalist, Veronica "Ronnie" Tate.
  • Asakawa Reiko in the Japanese horror film Ringu and Rachel Keller in the American remake, The Ring.
  • Martha Hackett (played by Marisa Tomei) in The Paper. When she phones her editor/husband with an actual hot scoop, he asks her "What are you wearing?"
  • In an instance of Adaptational Attractiveness, Daily Prophet gossip reporter Rita Skeeter in the Harry Potter films looks better than described in the books, due to being played by Miranda Richardson.
  • Roxanne Ritchi of Megamind, a deconstructive parody of Lois Lane.
  • Hildy Johnson, the female lead of His Girl Friday.
  • Kimberly Wells in The China Syndrome. Deconstructed in a way, as her sexist boss relegates her to fluff pieces due to her attractiveness, never giving her the much-desired chance to cover serious news.
  • Lexie in Leatherheads, who almost immediately becomes the object of a love triangle with Dodge and Carter.
  • Gale Weathers in Scream.
  • The 1989 film Brenda Starr starring Brooke Shields as the intrepid reporter of comic strip fame.
  • Besides Lois Lane in Superman Returns, the Australian reporter played by Peta Wilson.
  • Idiocracy takes this to the logical extreme, with the anchors on Fox News Channel being a hot chick in a bikini and a male hunk with no shirt on.


Literature

  • The Dresden Files: Susan Rodriguez.
  • The Discworld's Sacharissa Cripslock grows out of her prim-and-properness into one of these... although she's actually only moderately attractive, but is stunningly beautiful when considered over several centuries.
    • That is, she's got eyes that would've been regarded as ideal two hundred years ago, when the standards of beauty were different in some details; a chin that would've qualified her as a sex symbol three centuries ago; a nose that could've started a war a thousand years in the past.... The curves of her figure, on the other hand, "never go out of fashion at all and are perfectly at home in any century" -- and her severe dress tries but fails to tone these down.
  • Mary Frances Mulrooney from The Takers, a modern Two Fisted Tale by Jerry Ahern.
  • Kate Manzoni from The Light of Other Days.
  • According to the interviews, Ginny Weasley ultimately grows into this in Harry Potter. More exactly, she becomes a professional quidditch player, and then a quidditch reporter after retirement.


Live Action TV

  • Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
  • Chloë Sullivan from Smallville, and later Lois Lane.
  • Danny Concannan from The West Wing is arguably a male version of this trope, down to dating CJ.
  • Angela Heaney and Marianne Swift from The Thick of It.
  • Jackie from Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Bonus points for being Scottish and all the UST with the show's chief Cowboy Cop, Gene Hunt. Between the series, they even had a one-night stand...or so Jackie pretends when she's pregnant, for the lulz.
  • In the series The Cape, cyber-sleuth/blogger Orwell.
  • Shauna Malwae-Tweep from Parks and Recreation.
  • Jennifer Horton on Days of Our Lives
    • And, for a male version, her husband Jack Deveraux.
  • Sandra Sultry from The Wedge (a parody of Real Life Australian news presenter Sandra Sully).
  • Will Tippin in Alias. This was Bradley Cooper's breakout role, leading to film stardom and the title of People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2011.


Newspaper Comics

  • The Brenda Starr, Reporter strip from the 1940s put this trope on center stage.


Webcomics

  • Carol from El Goonish Shive. In her first story arc, she even complains about the short skirts required by her station's dress code.
  • Parodied in Femmegasm with Fizzy McBeer, whose interviewees are frequently distracted by her Gag Boobs.
  • The three female leads of LCD all qualify.


Western Animation


Video Games


Real Life

  • Nellie Bly, real name Elizabeth Jane Cochran. While in her twenties she was a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World who did stories exposing the horrible conditions in an asylum by pretending to be an insane patient. For her newspaper she emulated Jules Verne's Around The World in 80 Days, doing it in just 72.
  • Indeed, in many media, due to unattractiveness being a big no-no for casting women, it is extremely unlikely to find a female TV host who isn't, if not attractive, at least pretty. Goes double for weather anchors, whose outfits, for some reason, also show significantly more skin than their male counterparts.
  • BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders is quite the Christmas Cake. Of course, it helps that she's a member of a famous family of entertainers noted for their good looks (she accounts Olivia "Thirteen" Wilde as a half-cousin).
    • She's also the daughter of Michael Flanders; the looks are from her mother's side.
  • Danni Boatwright. Being a former beauty queen helps. She also won Survivor: Guatemala.
  • Here's a whole slew of them.
  • Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White. So hot Candace Bergen and Farrah Fawcett portrayed her in films.
  • Paz Vega majored in journalism before pursuing a career in acting.
  • Anderson Cooper. The gray hair only adds to his charm.
  • And then of course there's Fan Service first, news second Naked News, "the program with nothing to hide". Its attractive female anchors perform stripteases as they present the news, and often tape segments at nude beaches and resorts, and even on the streets interviewing pedestrians, since it is legal to be topless in Canada.
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