Electric Ink - Series 2 - Episode 2

by Alistair Beaton and Tom Mitchelson. A comic satire set in the struggling world of newspapers. Maddox refuses to give up a source. Could he really face prison. Maddox ..... John Sessions Oliver ..... Alex Jennings Freddy ..... Stephen Wight Carol ..... Polly Frame Masha ..... Debbie Chazen Policeman ..... Henry Devas Warder ..... Adeel Akhtar Producer ..... Sally Avens Alistair Beaton and Tom Mitchelson's satire is set in the world of modern newspapers. A group of dysfunctional journalists attempt to cover major news stories at the same time as grappling with the demands of working in a multi-platform environment, watching circulation figures plummet and the recession causing half the workforce to be laid off. At the heart of the comedy is the relationship between Maddox Bradley, a journalist who mourns the day of proper investigative journalism, and Freddy, the online editor who will regurgitate a press release quite happily and call it a story. But they have a grudging respect for the each other as Freddy helps Maddox stay afloat in the world of Twitter, Facebook and podcasting and Maddox shows Freddy how to sniff out the real story. Both are at the mercy of Oliver, the pragmatic editor more concerned with keeping his job, and Carol, the news editor who 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. And only Masha, the Russian head of online communities, who wants to give away all their content because that is true democracy, knows Freddy's secret; that he's a posh boy from Eton rather than a hypercool kid from the street; well that's what Freddy thinks anyway.