John C. Beckson

John C. Beckson is the gruff yet lovable editor-in-chief of the Daily Egg, Chill Island's local newspaper. He also serves as the news anchor for the Daily Egg's TV station, and is well-known among the island's residents for his iconic voice. In addition, Beckson hosts his own podcast, The Fight for Truth, where he critiques news articles, usually from tabloids, sent to him by his listeners.

Daily Egg
In 2012, unable to resist the pull of the news, Beckson and his wife moved to Chill Island, shortly followed by their son James who wanted to keep an eye on his aging parents. Assuming reporting the news of the small yet developing island would make for a much less stressful job than his previous paper in Polaris, Beckson quickly established the Daily Egg with the support of Mayor Chill57181, which began releasing bi-weekly since relatively little was actually happening.

The Fight for Truth
In October 2018, Beckson was sent the latest issue of the Penstubal Post by one of the readers of the Daily Egg, hoping that he would write an opinion piece about it and "rip it to shreds". Beckson was shocked by the tabloid's contents and immediately began writing the article once he finished reading it. After getting halfway through writing the sixth page and being nowhere near done, Beckson realized that an issue of the Daily Egg didn't have enough room to contain his thoughts and came up with the idea of starting a podcast to discuss his thoughts. The result was The Fight for Truth, which was advertised in the next issue of the Daily Egg in place of Beckson's planned opinion piece, the Daily Egg's website, and Beckson's newly-created Chitter account.

The first episode was a massive success, with nearly the entire population of Chill Island tuning in within a few hours of it being posted. Word of the podcast quickly spread to Shops Island, greatly boosting its viewership. A week later, the podcast's first episode had already been viewed over 2.5 million times. However, Penstubal soon heard about the podcast and was infuriated. Following a long rant by Penstubal on Chitter, the Post published an article attacking Beckson's podcast, which ended up being used as content for the second episode.

Beckson's podcast quickly accumulated a massive fanbase. Beckson received thousands of articles from various sources to critique, along with requests from others to appear as a special guest on his show. Although he originally planned to release new episodes bi-weekly alternating with the Daily Egg, the podcast was so popular that Beckson initially increased the frequency of episode releases to weekly, then twice a week.

Involvement

 * Editor-in-Chief - Beckson is currently the editor-in-chief of Chill Island's local newspaper, the Daily Egg. Before moving to Chill Island, he was the editor-in-chief of a newspaper in Polaris. The job eventually became too stressful and took a toll on his health, causing him to quit at the suggestion of his wife.
 * Writer - Thanks to how slow Freezonian news usually is, Beckson often has the opportunity to write opinion pieces in the Daily Egg, usually a rant about whatever is bothering him that day. Typically, these rants have something to do with the Techno State, Carl the Fry Thief, vigilantism, or tabloids.
 * News Anchor - In addition to serving as the Daily Egg's editor-in-chief, Beckson is also the sole news anchor for its TV station. His presence on the station has made him very popular among Freezonians.
 * Podcaster - Starting in October 2018, Beckson began hosting The Fight for Truth, a podcast where he harshly critiques news articles sent in by his listeners. A typical episode runs from anywhere between 2.5 to 4 hours; on occasions where Beckson dissects an entire issue of the Penstubal Post, the episode has a tendency to run almost 5 hours, covering only the issue itself and no other articles. Beckson doesn't screen any of the articles before he reads them, allowing the fans to hear his first reactions. This often results in Beckson erupting in laughing fits while reading some of the more ridiculous articles.

Personality
Beckson is well known for his gruff personality and holding his employees to a high standard. He is highly critical of anyone who disrupts day-to-day life on Chill Island and often writes opinion pieces for the Daily Egg denouncing them as menaces. He rarely shows fear and is not afraid to stand up to villains like Radztur and Evil Pengy, actually scaring the latter when he came to take over the Daily Egg. He has a tendency to not remember the names of his employees and instead refers to them by nicknames based on their traits, such as personality or appearance.

Beckson takes news reporting very seriously and considers it a privilege and great responsibility to deliver Antarctic events to its residents. Because of his philosophy, he despises tabloids and anyone who works on them, as well as the concept of clickbait.

Beckson is very proud of his son James, an agent in the Chill Island Protection Force, and frequently brags about "my son the secret agent". Beckson often attributes the CIPF's shortcomings, particularly their failure to capture the Fry Thief, to them not asking James to lead missions. Beckson hates any vigilantes and bounty hunters who happen to be on Chill Island, publicly claiming that this is because he thinks they are "illegally taking the law into their own flippers" and interfering with the CIPF's operations; speaking of vigilantes in particular, he says they should "stop being cowards and join the CIPF like everyone else if you want to bring criminals to justice". In reality, he just doesn't want them to end up stealing any glory James may receive.

Although he respects both Chill57181 and the Chill Island Protection Force for the most part, he is not afraid to criticize them both. Beckson usually keeps his criticism private, worrying that publishing his thoughts in full in the Daily Egg would undermine the public's trust in the island's authorities.

Relationships

 * Carl the Fry Thief - Beckson despises the Fry Thief for his many heinous acts and has called him a menace with the potential to destabilize Antarctica in the Daily Egg, frequently writing opinion pieces bashing him and hoping for his capture. Beckson hopes to get pictures of the Fry Thief caught in the act to publish in the Daily Egg, although deep down secretly hopes he never does, as he is too scared to look at the Fry Thief's face.
 * Chill57181 - Although Beckson respects Chill and thinks he has mostly done a good job in his position as mayor, he does not overlook his shortcomings. In particular, Beckson views Chill as far too incompetent to be in charge of a continent-wide conspiracy as the Penstubal Post claims he is. Beckson once had Chill on as a guest for an episode of The Fight for Truth, in which he had a brief interview regarding Chill's thoughts on the Post's claims and other issues. When Beckson asked about the Techno State, Chill claimed that he hadn't heard of them but "would look into it", although after finishing the episode Chill clarified that he had known about them for months but refused to publicly acknowledge them as a bit, a decision which still baffles Beckson.
 * James D. Beckson - Beckson is very proud of his son and his accomplishments in the Chill Island Protection Force. He frequently brags about "my son the secret agent", which has ironically given James quite the reputation on Chill Island for being a secret agent.
 * Night Terror - Despite Beckson and the Night Terror's shared disdain for the Fry Thief, Beckson has a strong dislike for the Night Terror due to his role as a vigilante.
 * Penstubal - Beckson quickly ended up on Penstubal's radar after he spent three hours heavily criticizing an issue of the Penstubal Post on the first episode of his podcast. While the two have never met personally, they have gotten into arguments on Chitter on multiple occasions, usually ending with Penstubal resorting to personally insulting Beckson before blocking him, only to unblock him a day or so later.
 * What Tambourine - Upon his arrival on Chill Island, Tambourine moved across the street from Beckson and began irritating him with his excessively loud techno music. Beckson has written many opinion pieces for the Daily Egg denouncing Tambourine and the Techno State as menaces.

Chronology

 * 2013
 * Rise of the Evilositian Army

Quotes

 * "With great news comes great responsibility."
 * "I want pictures, pictures of the Fry Thief!"
 * "No news is good for opinion pieces."
 * "Hello everyone, and welcome to the Fight for Truth with your host, John C. Beckson. The other day one of my readers from the Daily Egg sent me this issue of the, uh, Penstubal Post, with the request that I "rip it to shreds". Apparently it's some ridiculous tabloid that's been getting popular around Antarctica for whatever reason. Now the reason I'm making this podcast is because I was halfway through writing the sixth page of my opinion piece on this absolute waste of ink when I realized the Daily Egg was too small for my thoughts on this. So, here we are. Before I get into it, I'd just like to say that if you're highly offended by stupidity you should turn this off now and go do something else, because this paper is filled with nothing but stupidity from front to back. Alright, if you're still here, thanks for sticking around. Let's get started."