Joseph Peterson

Joseph Peterson is an 8th generation Ventrue of Chicago, a childe of Prince Lodin.

Biography

By the late 1960s, Joe Peterson had become disgusted with the liberal trends in journalism. A veteran of the most reactionary days of the Chicago Tribune, words like objectivity and fairness were foreign to his vocabulary.

Opponents of America as he saw it were to be prosecuted with every resource available, and he was a leader in the paper’s fight against the civil rights movement. When the paper won the first of its three Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting between 1971 and 1976, Peterson decided it was time to leave. He became a media consultant, stealing ideas from The Selling of the President 1968 to push candidates and businesses. Unfortunately, more politicians won despite his help than because of it. The same held true for the businesses whose public relations campaigns he ran. During the Carter years, he found work slacking off. He took a part-time post as a journalism professor at Daley Community College, where he remained in obscurity until Lodin began looking for a lieutenant to help him control the growing threat from the media.

The prince heard about Peterson from a state senator who had used his services in the early 1970s and, unusually, had nothing but praise for the consultant. When Lodin heard him lecture, he was also impressed. Of course, it was the same lecture Peterson had been giving for years. Several nights later Lodin approached Peterson and, after a short demonstration of vampiric powers, offered him immortality. Peterson had no reservations about accepting the Embrace. He now prefers to be called by his full name of Joseph, comparing himself to the biblical figure who was sold into slavery by his brothers (how he has come to view his treatment by fellow journalists) and became a power in Egypt. Despite his mortal incompetence, Peterson has had little trouble keeping media reports of the Kindred out of the news. Recently he has become more high-handed, though he worries that his threats, intimidation and attacks may someday backfire. Still, he is cocky because of his new powers and does not worry too much. He still has connections to both the Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. As the local televisions rations follow the lead of the papers, Peterson has seen little need to clamp down on them despite their recent emphasis on local news. In fact, the only local news source that has eluded his control is the Chicago Reader — a weekly newspaper which he holds in contempt — and the local college papers.

Joseph is one of Chicago’s main advocates of the Masquerade, and he will work with any vampire, be it anarch or elder, to preserve it. He is also the Cainite most likely to push for sanctions against those who blatantly violate this secrecy. He still lives in southwest Chicago, near the Daley Community College campus, and feeds exclusively on journalists.

Joseph believes his control of the media is reason enough to make him prince, an opinion he will express to everyone within earshot. He points out that it was only through his efforts that the worst aspects of the Lupine attack never made it into the press, and says there are many great things he could do if he were prince — though if pressed he is short on specifics. Indeed, the idea of becoming prince is so attractive to Joseph that if it appears likely the honor will go to another, he will threaten to break the Masquerade in a most permanent way.

He controls the Chicago media; he can bury a story with a single phone call or order another into high visibility. In the modern world this is an influence far more powerful than one might think; given time he can actually affect the mindset of the people of Chicago, shifting their opinions on such things as crime, politics and police brutality.

Character Sheet

References

• VTM: Chicago by Night, p. 136-137
• VTM: Chicago by Night Second Edition, p. 131-132