PBS NIGHTLY NEWS

[Beautancus]

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"PBS Nightly News -
Staying Ahead of the Curve,
For You"
​

The Popular Broadcast Service, or PBS, is the eldest, largest and "most trusted" source of television news in the Confederated Republic of Beautancus
- and thus also the most influential and most profitable, by a fair margin, demonstrated by having recently grown to Thaumantic proportions with the genesis of PBS N-EX in No.C.R.E.R.

Founded three months prior, and transmitting first broadcast in November of 1940, anchored by the legendary newsman Lowell Timmons, the PBS Nightly News has enjoyed a place of special prominence and trusted familiarity in Cussian living rooms since.

The dominance of PBS' 1830 (supper time) news program in recent years has remained virtually unchallenged, with figures for Q1 reflecting viewership by a total audience of 14.563 million households (viewers of all ages), just shy of double the numbers posted by their nearest competitors, the Roanoke News Company (RNC).

Much of this success can be attributed to remarkable "brand loyalty," but some of it is owed to the obvious charisma and synergy apparent between the Nightly News two co-anchors, Russ Wright and Aliza Qasan. This television power-duo (rumored to get along "famously" off-camera) are regularly credited as a major factor in the broadcasts consistent ratings by PBS higher ups and industry analysts alike, with an unprecedented 28 achievements and awards between them to attest to this fact.

The following broadcasts, typically presenting selected segments and including both national and local advertisements, are as presented on WECT 09 (PBS 9), for the aforementioned 1830 time slot (supper time). Representing the citizens of two of Beautancus' greatest Commonwealths, in the southeastern districts & prefectures of Clarendon and their counterparts across the line in north-northeastern Chicora, PBS 9 is nationally recognized and regularly awarded for their efforts to present the best news to the citizens of "the Old East of West."






OOC: This thread won't be at all image heavy, though I may spice a few in here and there from time to time. In most cases, it is my intention to provide a visual context or frame of reference for the topic in that segment by description of various lengths, denoted by the presence of "<,>" before and after, respectively. I will also not do this as much as other news posting, mainly when I have an item of particular note or with a stronger than normal impact on the Cussian people to present. Or record for posterity's sake.

 

[Beautancus]

PBS Nightly News,
evening of August 25th, 464 RC

​

<the tail end of a local advertisement, "Late Summer Blowout & Clearance!!!" at the region's biggest modular home designer and dealership, Wabash Modular Solutions.

The owner was barking at the camera, a Cussian man on the far side of middle age and beginning to show a bit of inattention to fitness - judging from the oppressed look of the dress shirt stretched over his barrel-like gut.

A distractingly beautiful woman, far younger and obviously not a direct relation, chimed in after to underscore her fat boss' pitch, accent and ethnic character betraying her origins south, on the shores of the Cassiopeian Sea. The last bit of her wobbling curves and scandalous dress address are cut short, nat'l. news is on.>

The voice-over begins immediately, "Good evening on this late Summer Sunday from Clarencester Studios in Welmonton, I am Russ Wright and this is the PBS Nightly News."

<the montage of logo, title, subtext and date play as Russ Wright jabbers on, seamlessly ending with the camera focused on the man himself and the news desk>

"Aliza Qasan is on assignment in No.C.R.E.R. tonight, as the first appalling accounts and footage have begun to flood social media in the wake of an apparent 'fire bombing' of portions of liberated Ouistreham by North Burgundian forces."

<Wright changes direction with the cameras effortlessly, a digital image of a bombed out suburb of Ouistreham - by now memetically hardcoded into the Cussian popular subconscious - inserted over his shoulder>

"In what the DoD and BURCOM are calling 'a typically barbarous Fictional atrocity,' forces including North Burgundian uniformed regulars and West Burgundian Marxist Collaborators have begun to shell portions of the former Neustrian capital with incendiary weapons - including napalm and the infamously lethal white phosphorous, capable of producing incredibly intense flames that experts told us were virtually impossible to extinguish."

<He turns again, or the camera angle shifts perhaps, and a new graphic is digitally inserted over his shoulder - this time it is an enhanced thumbnail taken from the highest trafficked, trending video from Ouistreham>

"Social media on a number of supernets have been ablaze with pic-shares and video clips from West Burgundian citizens on the ground in the afflicted city, defiantly enraged that their former countrymen would commit such heinous acts against them and their once fair, Engelseaside city. I warn you, the following video has not been edited, and reflects the full brutality of the atrocities committed in Ouistreham tonight."

<The picture cuts away from Wright, a portion of the clip from which the thumb had been lifted now playing.

Civilians flee through the streets of Ouistreham in yet another shaky home video, the person holding the camera stops long enough to turn and pan the camera back in the direction from which they'd come. A building several stories high, likely apartments, is now almost completely engulfed - a person leaps from a balcony five or six floors up, a jet of wind-fed flame trailing them all the way to their crashing impact on the pavement below.

The "amateur video-journalist" appears distressed, and seems almost to turn away, surely they must have known the now dead and burning person on the street, whem another shell impacts the burning building. The strike lands on the far side of the structure from the camera, some form of high explosive this time gauging by the effect. The flame-wreathed frame of the apartments seem to shudder, the center of its gravity almost churning - the explosion begins to really take off - and the whole of the camera's perspective is immediately blotted out with a swirling constellation of chalky white dust from pulverized mortar and plaster, greasy black smoke and blistering white, gold and orange flames.

The camera shakes violently, the person holding it appears to be hurled some distance by the force of the blast. Rather admirably, they seem to have held onto their phone, camera or whatever device had captured this horror. They are motionless for a moment, the angle of perspective thrust upward to a sky now choked with debris. Seconds pass, they begin to stir, swearing softly with the hissing passion of the Frankish tongue.

The frame returns to its former focus slowly, the holder now loudly sobbing and visibly shaking. The apartment building -presumably their home - has been utterly obliterated, along with the structures that had been standing on the side facing the shell's impact. Another between the camera and the local catastrophe of the blast was sagging and tilting to one side heavily, a large portion of its former mass blasted away.

The camera returns to Wright at the news desk, long-faced and somber.>

"Images like these are joined by hundreds, if not thousands already, and that number will only continue to climb as the outraged people of Ouistreham look for some way to vent their fury over this continued betrayal. The Domain's forces in the city have been and are being as affected by this insane firebombing as the civilian population of the city, with no word yet on how serious casualties and other damage from this attack has been yet."

<The angle changes again, Wright has softened his expression slightly but still retains a very serious demeanor.>

"We're going to join Gannon Medwyck after we come back from break, who is safe and on the ground in Ouistreham tonight," the Nightly News' theme track begins to play over him, lightly. "Now these words from our partners and sponsors."

<the image fades, but the invincible drive of Thaumantic consumerism never sleeps, and the next commercial begins immediately, an almost seizure inducing flash of gaudy color...>