There is a lot of new content and other changes to cover in this update, so let us start with a TL;DR: Beta 7 introduces the concept of friends and rivals among your reporter staff, along with a number of new in-game events, both repeatable events, and 2 new 5-event storylines.
It is strongly recommended that you start a new game, if your save is from before Beta 6.1. Rather than simply deleting older games, load it one last time and "finish" by retiring (from the Office Management screen). Doing so will calculate a final score and save it to your high score list.
Friend and Rivals
Returning to the friends and rivals concept, here is how it works. If two of your reporters share interest in the same topic and aren't political opposites (as in, one is Very Liberal and the other is Very Conservative), they might become friends. On the other hand, if they share an interest but ARE political opposites, they may become rivals. In theory, other events might cause relationships to form, but this is the standard way.
Once two reporters have established a relationship, their respective front pages and raises given, will affect their counterpart. In the case of a friend, there is happiness to gain. In the case of a rival, the opposite is the case. But if you end up firing one of these bonded reporters, a friend will surely suffer while the rival will feel relieved.
Word count counts
Besides the ongoing effects mentioned above, friends/rivals may also be affected by specific events, and they may trigger events of their own. Friends will sometimes do stuff together after work, whereas rivals might get into loud arguments at the office. With all of this, there are several new quotes for your reporters to say, as they are affected by these relationships.
Credibility Events
There are other new events in Beta 7, tied to specific stories that affect the credibility of your newspaper. These stories are already marked with a green or red flag in the game, and affect your reputation depending on the stories you publish. What is new is, that is any specific story has a very high influence may trigger new in-game events, depending on which way your credibility went.
In terms of game balance, you may now see a warning icon appear on screen if you exceed your maximum wordcount before going to the editor's desk. What happens if the articles are too long, is that they are edited down to fit before printing. This kind of editing can sometimes upset the writers who put all that effort into writing them in the first place. The more you go over the maximum allowed, the unhappier your reporters will be. A little bit over might be fine, but do try to watch out for the warning.
Awards
Award winning became slightly easier in Beta 7. Previously, every themed issue would add 0.1% chance that your next themed issue would trigger an Award. Now, the chance of winning the award is increased by up to 1% per themed issue. The exact percentage is based on the score of the issue itself. These awards are independent from Theme of the Month.
Storylines
There are also two new storylines to trigger! One involves espionage and may trigger after you research "International Affairs". The other might trigger if you publish an Economy-themed newspaper issue after having researched "Intranet". Each day you meet the criteria, the chance of triggering the storylines increase. A bug was fixed in this update, that would reset ALL your storylines any time another was added to the game. That has been fixed with this update.
There is even more in this update, like a digital pet you can put on your Editor's Desk! Check the full list of additions, changes and fixes below.
All changes in Beta 7
Added: A digital pet toy, as a decorative Editor's Desk item
Added: New 5-event storyline that may trigger if you publish an Economy-themed issue after researching Intranet
Added: New 5-event storyline that may trigger after you finish the "International Affairs" upgrade
Added: If two reporters have similar interests and political opinions, they may become friends
Added: If two reporters have similar interests but opposite political opinions, they may become rivals
Added: Several new reporter quotes, for getting the top spot on the front page, and making and interacting with friends and rivals
Added: Friends gain happiness when their friends get a front page, or a raise.
Added: Friends lose happiness if their friend leaves the newspaper.
Added: Rivals lose happiness if their rival gets a raise or lands a front page.
Added: Rivals gain happiness if their rival leaves the newspaper.
Added: When reporters are either Friends or Rivals, occasional events will trigger that involve the two of them
Added: When a surging topic matches a reporter's interest, they may gain a small happiness boost and 1 of 4 new quotes
Added: If any story in your newspaper has a high effect on your credibility score, it may trigger an event. The result will be positive or negative, depending on how credibility was affected.
Added: A warning icon (w. tool tip) now appears if your word count is over your maximum
Added: Help-button in the sidebar, on the map screen (shortcut: F1)
Balance: Slightly increased the happiness penalty for going over your maximum word count
Balance: Reduced max opinion impact on celebrities when they're featured, from 25% to 12%
Balance: Increased cumulative chance of winning an award for publishing themed issues from 0.1%/issue to a max bonus of 1%/issue chance, depending on the score of the themed issue.
Balance: Events that trigger additional Angry Letters, add more letters on average (but retains same max. per event)
Balance: Landing a front page has a wider range of possible happiness rewards
Balance: Some events can now result in additional subscribers canceling their subscriptions.
Balance: It now gets harder and harder to trigger the "Owner is Happy" event (Angry Letter forgiveness)
Changed: Rewritten contextual help (F1) on the map to contain more information
Changed: Contextual help windows (F1) can now be closed using Enter
Changed: The summary on the Office screen now shows how many subscribers are needed to advance in the game
Changed: Tweaked and added a few reporter quotes, to make them less ambiguous
Changed: Reduced happiness penalty for disinterest-stories
Fixed: Crash if a reporter quit while working on a story
Fixed: Game might hang if a reporter got a new personality trait
Fixed: Newspaper summaries sometimes saved with incorrect top story title
Fixed: If the help prompt was open on the Office screen, you could skip a full game day by simply hitting Enter
Fixed: Story surges not triggering from the "Influencing the People" event
Fixed: Issue determining whether an issue is Themed when stories have been replaced
Fixed: Morale Event button would sometimes appear, even though the event was still on cooldown
Fixed: Text not rendering correctly in the help-pop up (F1 shortcut) while on the map
Fixed: The Theme-indicator on the map would reset if you removed an unrelated story from a reporter
Fixed: Upgrades unlocked in the previous game would be available if starting a new game immediately on Game Over
Fixed: Bug that would mark ALL your reporters as out for the day (AFK), if any one of them was out
Fixed: Sometimes, reporters would start asking for raises right after their first front page
Fixed: Event trigger bug that would ignore associated reporter IDs in non-priority events
Fixed: Various typos in event texts
Beta 6.1 - Tool Tips and Toggles
Small(ish) update, longish post. Scroll to the bottom of you want the TL;DR version.
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The last couple of updates were focused on making the game more stable, easier to learn and user friendly. Huge improvements were made but there were more, little things that didn’t make it into the last update but probably should have. Things like tool tips and toggles for features, you otherwise only knew about, if you knew the keyboard shortcut.
Besides the things mentioned, this update fixes a few more bugs, but doesn’t offer any new in-game events or storylines. However, it would be a shame for these improvements to sit and wait for the next major content patch to be done, when everyone who enjoys the game, could use this right away. So here we are.
One major bug fixed in this update, had storylines repeating themselves under certain circumstances, when they weren't supposed to. If you're continuing a saved game, you may still see this behavior a few times after the fix (those events were already queued in your game data), but new games are no longer affected.
Big shout out to James Henderson, whose twitch stream of the game was a big inspiration for this particular update. Give his channel a follow!
If you’re a streamer, content creator or reporter, and want to feature Above the Fold, please see the press kit page for more detail. Streamers who let me know ahead of time, might see me show up to answer questions live in chat (just ask James).
With Beta 6.1, the in-game help and teaching systems are done. New tips may still get added, others will definitely be rewritten, and so forth - if any parts of the game are a mystery to you, let me know!
All changes in Beta 6.1
Added: Toggle to switch game speed on the map
Added: Toggle to control map scroll speed, also on the map
Added: Toggle to turn the map key and guide bar on and off
Added: Button to open the settings window on the map and the office screen
Added: Tool tips, when hovering over various icons and buttons in the game
Added: Option to turn tool tips on/off via in-game settings
Added: Total cash value of advertisements now displayed when you pick them up
Changed: Each day of the week has its own color hue on the main office screen
Changed: When you schedule a Morale event, it now triggers the following day instead of a few days later
Changed: Gamespeed is no longer indicated by pluses (see new toggle instead)
Changed: Scroll speed is not longer written out in the upper right corner (see other new toggle)
Fixed: Clouds behaving badly when both mouse and keyboard are used together
Fixed: Plotline progress would reset and could be repeated, when they were not supposed to
Beta 6 adds Stability, Bug Fixes and Content
Beta 6 of Above the Fold focuses on quality of life, starting with squashing a several bugs reported by all those amazing people, who took the time to let me know. I apologize for the fact that this release took longer than expected - some of those bugs proved quite tricky to solve, and I also wanted to include some fresh content.
But first, a big change in the importance of politics. The biggest balance adjustment in Beta 6 is that advertisements you display in the paper, now also affect the political lean of each issue. Ad-cards display the political association of the advertiser when you pick them up, and if you have a lot of ads from one side of the political isle, it will slightly tip the appeal of the issue in the same direction.
Personality traits have been part of the game for a while. Each comes with its own bonuses, penalties and associated events in the game, but now your reporters can gain additional traits. Any reporter who has less than 3 personality traits, may gain a new one if they experience a large, sudden shift in happiness (either direction).
There are a few new user experience features in this update as well, small things to improve the game overall, like simplifying a bunch of the text shown on screen for faster reading, new icons to quickly indicate the political lean of a story before you pick it up, and in other icon-related news, the guide at the top of the map now displays a flashing chevron next to any story type that is currently surging in popularity.
We also have 2 new controls! Use the Page Up and Page Down keys to control the music volume, and use the number-keys 1, 2 or 3 to set the scrolling speed of the city map. The current speed is displayed on the right, near the top.
A surprising number of people had requested "better cloud movement", so that was added too. Where the clouds would always continue in the same direction before, they now take map scrolling into account and move in a more natural way. Another player request was the addition of borders when playing in windowed mode, making it easier to move the game around. Done, and again, thank you for these suggestions and requests.
Finally, there are several new in-game events in this update. Two new 5-event storylines, each tying in with a specific upgrade and a themed story, and a few new procedural events that may repeat several times during the game.
List of Changes in Beta 6
Added: Reporters with less than 3 personality traits, may develop a new trait if gaining or losing 5% happiness all at once
Added: "The Art Elite", a 5-event storyline that may trigger with an Art-themed issue, after researching "Arts"
Added: "Silver Mist Massage", a 5-event storyline that may trigger with a Crime-themed issue, after researching "Organized Crime".
Added: Reporters may compliment you or complain, if you publish a politically biased issue that is either perfectly aligned with or far from their own beliefs, respectively.
Added: Info cards when mousing over stories now display a left/right arrow if the story has a political bias.
Added: When you click on an ad, the pop-up now shows the political lean of the advertising business.
Added: 3 different scrolling speeds on the map. Switch between slow, medium and fast (default) using the keys 1, 2, and 3 while on the map
Added: Control the music volume using the Page Up and Page Down keys
Added: Border when playing in windowed mode, so you can move the window around
Added: Guide on the map now displays a flashing chevron icon over surging story types
Changed: The political bias of each issue is now influenced of the political appeal of the ads, featured in the issue (eg. lots of conservative ads will bias the issue slightly).
Changed: Guide-banner on the map now includes faded icons of story types that are still locked
Changed: Increased reward (points and bonus subs) from publishing a themed issue matching a surging story type.
Changed: The text on the pop-ups for story assignments and ads, has been simplified
Changed: Added a bit more space around the headlines on the front page
Changed: Increased chance that a quitting reporter changes their mind and stays, if happiness is boosted sufficiently
Changed: The clouds now move with the map, instead of doing their own thing
Fixed: Crash when game over and tutorials enabled
Fixed: Crash when a celebrity throws a fit or gets happy as a result of a storyline event
Fixed: Sometimes a reporter would quit, but a different reporter actually left the newspaper
Fixed: Advertisers tended to be more conservative than liberal due to bad math.
Out Now: Beginner Tips and More Content in Beta 5!
Welcome, Editors, to the 5th Beta update of Above the Fold!
This update has a huge improvement for new players - we have Beginner Tips! It's not a traditional tutorial that holds your hand, but 18 contextual tips to point and guide you - every decision is still yours to make, though. Even if you have been playing for a while, these tips may answer some of your lingering questions.
You can toggle the Beginner Tips on/off when starting a new game, or at any time via the options menu (Esc key), or using the F2 shortcut.
Speaking of decisions, this update also comes with 4 new story lines (20 new in-game events). Story lines are linked events, where your decisions carry over and result in 1 of 3 possible endings. This brings us to 20 story lines, and 100 story events added so far, with more coming in every update.
Besides these additions, we have some quality of life improvements. A new green/red flag icon now appears next to the active reporter. Previously, these were shown only on the story info-cards. The flags indicate whether a given story may affect the reputation and credibility of your newspaper. Green (pointing right) is positive, red (pointing left) is negative. 125 new headline elements, and 7 in-game celebs have also been added, for greater variation in the generated stories.
All of this, various bug fixes, and more, await you in Beta 5 of Above the Fold. As always, there is a chance older save games will be incompatible with the new update. This is especially true for saved games that go back several patches.
All Things New in Beta 5
Added: Beginner tips - 18 contextual tutorial pop-ups that explain core concepts of the game
Added: Turn Beginner Tips on/off via the options menu (Esc) or use the shortcut, F2
Added: New story line that may trigger after publishing a Science-themed issue
Added: New story line that may trigger after publishing a Economy-themed issue
Added: New story line that may trigger after publishing a Global Conflict-themed issue
Added: New story line that may trigger when publishing a Politics-themed issue after researching Political Cartoonist
Added: 125 new headline elements, for greater variation
Added: The active reporter now displays a green/red flag, if assigned a story that may affect your newspaper credibility or reputation
Added: 7 new celebrity characters, boosting underserved story types (all celebs are associated with a particular type of story).
Changed: When an event window opens that only has 1 button, you can now use [Enter] instead of clicking on it
Changed: The red flag now points the other direction than the green flag (for colorblind players)
Changed: Added comma separators to numbers in a few places for better readability
Changed: Chances of a strategic goal request from the Owner are slightly increased
Fixed: Crash when an event tries to change values of a celeb, but no celeb is assigned to the story
Fixed: Themed issue indicator now correctly ignores stories that will not finish that day
Beta 4 : Autumn Content Update
A total of 20 new in-game events, spread over 4 new story lines, make up the bulk of this content update. It also contains a few balance adjustments and quality of life fixes.
Chief among the quality fixes is the addition of a "Saving" icon, to indicate when the game is auto-saving. I added this after learning that some people's save games had corrupt data after leaving the game mid-save. Hopefully this simple addition should fix this problem.
Of the 4 new story lines added, 3 of them may trigger after publishing a Climate, Business or Art & Culture themed issue. The events are not guaranteed to trigger on the first try, but the chance increases with every themed issue. The 4th story line may be triggered by publishing a Sports-themed issue, but only after purchasing the "Professional Sports" upgrade.
As usual, each story line has 3 endings. Each ending has its own consequences and rewards, as do the choices that lead you to them. You decisions are weighed against the kind of newspaper you are running, and the "right" choice depends on your newspaper's demographic.
Balance-wise, the most notable change comes with celebrities. You may already have noticed that publishing stories with celebrity names attached gives them a boost in importance, and your stories can affect what those celebrities think of you. It may even come to them endorsing or condemning your newspaper. None of this is new, but what is, is taking each celebrity's Fame score into account. Now, the effect of an endorsement/condemnation will scale with the Fame, for better and for worse.
Change list in Beta 4
Added: Sports-themed issues + Professional Sports upgrade may trigger new story (5 events)
Added: Business-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
Added: Art-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
Added: Climate-themed issues may now trigger a new story line (5 events)
Added: Saving icon, to avoid accidental data corruption by quitting while saving
Changed: The effect of making celebrities happy/mad now scales with the fame score of that celeb
Fixed: memory leak on the map screen would cause a crash after prolonged playing
Fixed: crash when loading a game, saved while having in-game music turned off
Fixed bug that would not properly reset your upgrade tree in a new game, after a game over
Fixed a bug where a different newspaper name could appear in the ticker when first starting a game
Fixed a bug that could prevent 3 story lines from triggering as expected
Beta 3 : Celebrity Power and Easier Winning
More meat on the bones! That is the shortest way to describe this update to Above the Fold. Continuing the trend from the previous two betas, there are 4 brand new story lines - more than 20 new events total - each with 3 different endings and consequences for your newspaper.
Celebrities have gotten a boost. Some in-game stories are tied to specific celebs, each with their own opinion of the paper. Based on your actions, their opinions may (d)evolve until the celeb mobilizes their fans, either to support your newspaper or to combat it.
Easier to Win
One very important change, is that victory conditions have been modified, so that you now need to meet either of the conditions listed below.
25 Awards (was 50)
50 Completed goals (was 100)
1,000,000 subscribers (unchanged)
Also worth mentioning, the new Theme-indicator on the city map is a Quality-of-Life feature that several have been asking for. Now you can see right away, when you have assigned enough stories of any given type, for the issue to become themed accordingly.
Here are all the new things in Beta 3
New 5-event story line that may be triggered with an Entertainment-themed issue
New 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Health-themed issue
New 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Politics-themed issue
New 5-event story line that may trigger after Photographers have been researched
New Theme-indicator in the Map sidebar shows when your issue-in-progress has a theme
30 new Reporter names (10 male, 10 female, 10 last names)
10 new things your reporters might say, depending on their mood
15 new story headline elements for more variation
New rare event: Celebrities who really (dis)like you, can now mobilize their fans for/against you.
New music on the main menu screen, and on the 'new game' and 'game over' screens
2 new notebooks to choose from when customizing the Editor's Desk: a top-spiral, and red lined note pad
Balance: bigger potential impact on celebrity opinions
Balance: lowered the number of required awards to win the game from 50 to 25
Balance: lowered the number of required goals to win the game from 100 to 50
Balance: Reporters less likely to change their daily quote by having a story replaced
Fixed a crash that could trigger in the "New Game" story line
Fixed a bug that would cause a soft lock, when you "Retire" a game
Fixed a bug where the event DONG!-sound would play when there was no event
Fixed a bug that would cheat players out of the Theme of the Month Award
Fixed bug that would cause new strategic goals to not trigger
Fixed a bug that in some cases would submit your score to the Alpha leaderboards instead of Beta
Fixed a bug that would call the save-script where it shouldn't, with a small chance of data corruption
Various minor tweaks and bug fixes
Beta 2: Is That a Pager on Your Desk?
In this second Beta update, more content is added across several parts of the game. 5 new story lines, each with 3 different endings, make up the bulk of the content, but wait - there's more!
The Editor's Desk screen is still a work-in-progress, but in this update it has gotten some bug fixes and 2 new items. In true 90s style, you can now choose to display a couple of floppy disks, or a neat pager! If there are any other items, you'd like to see in the game - let's hear it!
A new music track was added to the Strategic Goal screen, to emphasize that something different is happening in the game. There are more musical tweaks like this to come in future updates as well.
Full Changelist
Added: 5-event story line triggered some time after researching Interns
Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Sports-themed issue
Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Off-Beat-themed issue
Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a History-themed issue
Added: 5-event story line that may be triggered with a Crime-themed issue
Added: Floppy Disks and a Pager are now items you can customize your editor's desk with
Added: New music for picking strategic goals with the Owner
Changed: Morale events can now be scheduled every 7 days (was just 1 at a time)
Fixed: Morale Event button would sometimes incorrectly spawn
Fixed: Crash related to customizing your Editor's Desk
Multiple minor bug fixes
Constructive feedback is always welcome. If you have wishes and requests for future updates, put them in a comment. If your idea fits with the overall plan for the game, it will be included.
First Beta Update: It's Story Time!
Important: Beta 1 is not fully compatible with Alpha save games. It is highly recommended that you Retire any existing games and start fresh with this update.
The first beta took much longer to put together than I wanted, and for that I apologize, but here it finally is!
Many of the additions and changes are content related, but you may notice a couple of visual changes as well, such as the brand new icons for different story types and available advertisements. These were done by Dutch artist Kay Lousberg, who also designed the city map of Goodbury. You may also notice, that the background color within the game has changed to a cooler tone.
TIP: Hit G when on the map to toggle the map key on/off.
Because this is the first Beta, the leaderboards have also gotten a wipe! This means that you have a brand new opportunity to put your newspaper at the top of the list, and earn worldwide bragging rights.
Finally, there are a number of smaller tweaks and changes. The way you improve morale for your reporters has changed a little, quest goals were rebalanced (again), and you can now right-click on unwanted stories on the map to dismiss them - this not only increases the odds of a new story spawning, it also earns you a few points for that leaderboard.
I really hope you enjoy the first beta. The Story Lines are really the major new feature, and the next update will primarily build on that with more of these types of events. Now that the framework for the stories is in, adding more content will be the priority.
All Beta 1 Changes
New: Storylines - linked series of events with 3 different outcomes based on choices made. Stories may trigger once per game
New: "New Game" story added, may trigger after newspaper is fully staffed
New: The "Coffee Plot" story, chance of triggering increases every issue with more than 65% wordcount.
New: "City in Need" story, chance of triggering every time you publish a "Local News"-themed issue.
New: Story markers and map guide have been updated with new, original graphics
New: Advertisement markers have been updated with new, original graphics
New: "Buy Lunch" has been replaced with "Morale" and now queues up a morale event, which may increase happiness. Only one morale event may be queued at a time, but the rewards have been increased up to 400% compared to the "Buy Lunch" button from previously. Cost remains unchanged.
New: Beta Leaderboard is now live on Steam. Turned off score submission to the Alpha Leaderboard
Changed: Leaderboard button removed from the menu, replaced with website button
Changed: Office background graphic changed to a "stormy" color tone
Changed: Right-click on unwanted stories on the Map to dismiss them, earn a small amount of points for doing so. This also increases the chances of new stories spawning.
Changed: Font scales down in event windows with longer descriptions
Balance: Quest goal requirements have been lowered and re-balanced for age group and politically based quests. You also score more points for completing quests.
Balance: Morale events reward up to 4 times more Happiness than previously
Fixed: Bug preventing more than one timed event to play out on the same date
Fixed: Events being skipped if they were slated to run on a weekend day
Fixed: Crash related to desk customization
Fixed: Various stability and optimization fixes.
Plan Your Retirement (from Alpha)
The first beta is a few days away at this point (provided no new game breaking bugs appear!) so I thought, I would share some details about what is to come, and why your save game won't be compatible after the new patch.
Storylines
In its simplest form, a story is a series of linked events that each present you with a decision to make. Each choice has an immediate effect, like with the random or procedural events already in the game, but what makes stories unique is that they each have 3 different endings. The ending you get, depends on the choices you made. The exact effect on your newspaper depends on the story, and the kind of newspaper you're running.
To get this feature to work requires some additions to the save game data, that simple is not there in old save games. Adding backwards compatibility in this case, is not a feasible task and so, a strategic decision was made ...
But wait, all is not (completely) lost.
Time to Retire
If you want to END your game properly, I suggest you use the Retire feature (find it under Office Management). When you retire a game, the final score will be calculated and saved to both your local high score list and the leaderboards, if enabled.
The screenshot included, is from one of my own retired games. I know, that screen needs a make over. It's on the list. But you can see how the final score is calculated.
Speaking of Leaderboards
With the move from Alpha to Beta, the leaderboards will be renewed as well. The Alpha boards will not be deleted, but you will no longer be able to submit scores to it. This is your last chance, if you want to be at the top FOREVER!
And then, when Beta 1 launches, there will be brand new boards to dominate.
I hope you're as excited for Beta 1, as I am. There are more changes, including new story markers on the map, but I will save the full list for the release notes.
Feature Deep Dive : Reporters
Reporters are crucial to the direction and specialization of your newspaper. Each reporter has a number of attributes that can influence your paper, from the obvious numeric Skill and Level, to personality traits of all sorts. Some have kids, some don’t. Some are very political, others not so much. But how does all of this come together in the game? That’s what we will cover in this post.
Let’s start with the numbers. While Skill represents a Reporter’s basic talent, it doesn’t change much during the course of a game. Level, however, represents a year of experience and will go up by 1 point on that Reporter’s anniversary. Skill and Level contribute to the score of every story written. All of this won’t matter much, however, if your Reporter is in a foul mood.
The mood score is a percentage. If it drops too low, the Reporter May quit. But it also affects every story they write. When a story score is calculated, it is adjusted by the mood of its writer. In other words, if a story is worth 1000 points, but your Reporter’s mood score is 35%, the value of the story is reduced to 350 points. This is why, keeping your Reporters happy is so important.
The fastest way to increase someone’s mood is by giving them a Raise. However that is also very expensive, and you don’t want to price yourself out of a star Reporter. You can also “Buy Lunch” for the whole staff. This has only a small chance of improving the mood, although it does have a chance to affect all Reporters, not just one. However, the best way to keep them happy, is by assigning stories to them, that they enjoy writing. Keep an eye on their interests and assign them stories that match.
For this reason, Reporter interests are super important for your newspaper. There is no single best approach, as long as you are mindful of your strategy. Do you aim for broad coverage, or specialize in a few topics? You might hire a reporter who fits perfectly into your early game, but who will get replaced as more topics unlock. Experiment to find a combo that works for you, just remember that every time you fire one Reporter, there’s a chance the remaining ones will suffer a mood penalty.
Political opinion will also factor into the work Reporters deliver. If you aim to point your newspaper in a particular political direction, structuring the content accordingly is crucial. But if your Reporters aren't on the same wavelength, it will be an uphill battle. Reporters range from Liberal over Independent to Conservative, and though these labels aren't accompanied by a score, if you see the keyword "Very" in front of either of these, their opinion will have greater influence on the stories they produce.
You may also care if your Reporter has children. Parents are less likely to quit, even if miserable, simply because they are more responsible. More kids means less likely to leave. On the other hand, the more kids they have, the greater the chance that they need to take an occasional day off to deal with family matters.
Special events like that may trigger under other circumstances as well. Personality traits are all tied to one or more in-game event. Some of these are randomly triggered by anyone with that trait, while others trigger under specific circumstances. Personality traits leave much to discover for the player, and as such should not be ignored when hiring Reporters.
Speaking of hiring, the recommended approach is to fully staff your paper in the first couple of days. Fast enough that you start filling the front page with original content, but not so fast that you neglect paying attention to the things mentioned in this post.
