Electric Ink

Maddox Bradley

Maddox has been a newspaper reporter since the year dot. He hates the idea of 'New Media' and is very frustrated by the dumbing down of the paper. His hard hitting stories are increasingly 'spiked' in favour of giving the space over to re-hashed press releases relating to celebrity 'news'.

As Maddox has been around for quite a while, he knows how to manipulate those around him - and thus he does still sometimes manage to get his way. However, he has still be conned into presenting a pointless online 'vodcast' called The Politics Minute by his Editor.

Oliver

Oliver is the Editor in charge of the paper. His one and only aim is to increase readership, both on the web and in the newsagents - and he will do anything to achieve this goal. Oliver thinks Maddox is past it because he can't get to grips with Oliver's New Media ambitions... but the editor hasn't yet found a good enough excuse to fire his most experienced reporter.

Amelia (Series 1)

Amelia was the News Editor. She was having an affair with Oliver... the only person to work this out was Maddox - something the reporter used to his advantage.

Freddy

Freddy, who is only in his early 20s, is already the Head Of Online Media at the paper. He knows nothing about real reporting (research, checking sources etc)... he just quickly re-formats and uploads the press releases coming in on the news wires, adding lots of pictures of celebrities and buzzwords in the process.

Freddy pretends to be a street kid from Brixton - but his stupid fake 'ghetto' accent doesn't fool anyone. In the words of Maddox, Freddy is actually a 'privileged and pampered Eton-educated brat'.

Tasneem (Series 1)

Tasneem was in charge of marketing at the paper. She was always fighting Maddox for front page space for her latest promotion, whether it be a 2-for-1 meal deal, or cheap Eurostar tickets to Paris.

Tasneem was always under pressure to create attractive promotions and thus was a total bundle of nerves, neuroses and ailments. As her time was over-stretched, she made some silly mistakes - for example, in one week she created a wall chart about fungi in which a deadly mushroom was described as being 'lovely with butter'.

Masha

Masha is in charge of the interaction between the paper and its online readers. She makes sure people don't inappropriately comment on the articles posted online. Maddox is the bain of Masha's life because he can't see the point in letting readers comment on his articles. He also resists as much as is possible when it comes to having to get involved in the paper's online activities.

Carol (Series 2)

Carol is the newly appointed News Editor who has arrived from a tabloid newspaper. She believes that circulation will increase if they run pieces on Big Mac eating orang-utans and 'intelligent' skunks rather than Maddox's moral crusading diatribes.