Newspapers

Newspapers
Game	Red Dead Revolver Red Dead Redemption
Type	Information
Obtained by	Purchase from newspaper vendors in various towns.

“Read to learn about current events.”

–In-game description

Newspapers are a vital source of information in the American West at the time of Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption.

Red Dead Revolver

The Brimstone Epitaph

This newspaper is used to display the player's statistics after completing a chapter. The reporter, typesetter, publisher, and newspaper boy for the paper is Jody, who can be found hawking the paper outside of the paper's offices at the corner of 1st Street and Main Street in Brimstone.

Red Dead Redemption

The player is able to purchase newspapers in all settlements of the gameplay world for one dollar. Newspapers are normally sold outside train stations or near a stagecoach.

Newspapers give the player access to side missions, ambient events, and will report on game play events associated with player choices. For example, killing a person could result in the murder being reported in the newspaper.

The Blackwater Ledger

Characteristics

The Blackwater Ledger is the name of the newspaper available in Red Dead Redemption. It reports of the various events taking place in the world, and you may find the adventures of John Marston inside. The Blackwater Ledger can be bought for $1 per edition in various towns, from the papermen marked on the map. Like many newspapers of the later Western period, The Blackwater Ledger is distinctly developed from the more basic frontier newspapers of the earlier times, containing a range of articles from various journalists, advertisements, and smaller notices from businesses.

The year of publishing for an edition of The Blackwater Ledger is given in roman numerals in the top left corner of the page for all editions, except for the final edition obtainable on completion of the game, where the year is in roman numerals just below the title. All editions are dated "MCMXI" (1911) except the last edition which is dated "MCMXIV" (1914), confirming the year in which Red Dead Redemption ends as 1914.

At the right-bottom corner, you can read a variety of strange sentences, such as "I Wish I worked for Uncle Sam" and "You Got yourself a fine pair of eyes." These are actually cheat codes that can be entered via the main menu.

Acquisition

It is the only available newspaper to buy in all of Red Dead Redemption. Many of the events reported in the newspaper are player created. As the player progresses through the storyline they can pick up different copies of this newspaper and read it. The newspaper updates with key storyline plots. After the story ends, they all can be obtained and flipped through. They are not always available once they have been bought once already so they may not appear on the map until another major event in the storyline happens.(If the player has finished the storyline, then it will appear in a few in-game days.) It can be found in all major towns and settlements marked by a newspaper icon.

The player can purchase issue numbers 53 to 61 in the game as John Marston. Storyline missions unlock new editions. You can buy both the new edition and the former one.

Final Issue

The final purchasable issue of the newspaper is considerably different from the others. It is called The Blackwater Ledger and Sentinel instead of simply the Ledger, and generally has a different format. It acts as an epilogue to the game, as it explains what happened to almost all of the characters encountered by John Marston during the main storyline:

• Bonnie MacFarlane eventually married, though it is unclear to whom.
• Seth Briars finally found the treasure he was looking for and returned to his family.
• Edgar Ross retired after seven years and moved to a house by Lake Don Julio. (Ross can be killed by the player in the Stranger-Side Mission Remember My Family, serving as the only significant storyline character who can still be encountered by Jack.
• Marshall Johnson retired after having served as marshall of Armadillo for seventeen years, resolving to move as far away as humanly possible from the town.
• Abraham Reyes eventually defeated President Sanchez and became President of Mexico, but soon became a tyrant just like Sanchez.
• Irish died in an outhouse in Thieves' Landing after his gun accidentally discharged, fatally shooting him.
• Landon Ricketts moved back to the United States shortly after the events of the main storyline and died peacefully in his sleep a few weeks prior to when the player switches to the control of Jack.

The issue also has an article about the outbreak of World War I in which the reporter expresses that he is mostly ignorant to the events he describes. The last article states that state governor Nate Johns has been indicted on a vast quantity of criminal charges, despite the obviousness that Johns is guilty of all of the crimes.

Trivia

• Newspapers are the period-appropriate equivalent of the TW@ internet cafes and radio news in Rockstar's previous game Grand Theft Auto IV   as well as the Weazel News internet and radio updates in   Grand Theft Auto V.
• Newspapers cannot be bought in Free Roam.
• In the bottom right corner of the newspaper, players can find one of many cheat codes in the game.
• Newspapers cannot be removed from the "Kit" section of the player's inventory.
• If a player carefully stands on top of a stack of newspapers and jumps on them, they will make a metallic sound.
• If the player purchases the 1914 issue of The Blackwater Ledger, they drop it immediately after having finished reading it. If the player would like to read the final edition again, they must pay for it again.
• The final purchasable issue of The Blackwater Ledger serves as an epilogue of sorts to Red Dead Redemption and contains stories mentioning the beginnings of World War I.
• Sometimes, if one is to re-purchase the final issue in 1914, the newspaper will rearrange the story columns.
• The printing press of The Blackwater Ledger can be seen in Blackwater, but this cannot be entered.
• Oddly, The Blackwater Ledger is even sold in Mexico, although the vendor explains it as brought across from the border English editions, and would be valuable to Americans in the country, e.g. Landon Ricketts.

Gallery

John Marston purchases a newspaper.

An advert that can be found in a newspaper.

Another example of a newspaper advert, this time advertising a film.

The Blackwater Ledger