History
Oculum did not always begin as the foremost source of the information in the Orion Confederation. Indeed, it did not start out as a news network at all, but as a social network. Oculum was created by a board of various activist groups trying to create media infrastructure that was outside of the reach of government, for the sake of self-regulation and independence. By the time the third World War broke out on Terra, Oculum had seen modest success however the war would launch Oculum to the heights beyond any of its founders thought possible. Due to the mass destruction the world war caused many traditional media outlets were either destroyed or became nothing more than the glorified propaganda arms of their respective governments. Social media, like traditional media, was similarly wiped out or under government control. Oculum was able to avoid the fates of these networks due to its investment in high orbit or even out of orbit transmitters which had always been the goal of their original founders. With its datacenters and servers located in satellites and small stations that orbited the sun rather than Terra or Mars, Oculum was able to remain truly independent of the various warring powers of Terra or the colonies of Luna and Mars that were now independent states. With its dedication to making sure real genuine information was able to be freely transmitted between the warring powers and the free former Colonies, Oculum rapidly became the most trusted source of news media among all the states of mankind. Due to the free transit of information under Oculum thousands of war criminals were convicted using information transmitted by Oculum following the end of the Third World War.
Now hosting a stellar reputation, freelance journalists who had already been primarily using Oculum to get their stories to the public flocked to the social media network turned news giant in droves and the remnants of Earth’s traditional media stations signed contracts with Oculum to have their broadcasts transmitted across humanity’s growing galactic reach. Overtime these formal relationships became buyouts and as humanity extended its reach further beyond the Sol system, reports associated with Oculum if not Oculum reporters themselves followed them. Oculum hosted the first alien personality in human news, the Skrell, Xeq’ Xequre who quickly became known to humanity at large as “Zack Zachary”. The novelty of xenos news personalities soon lead to an inclusion of Teshari cohost known as Leshi Sei and the two personalities dominated intergalactic reporting in the first decades after humanity’s first contact with the Skrell only ending when Leshi retired due to advanced age with Xeq retiring out of respect soon after. Soon the reach of Oculum was no longer just a news network nor a social network, it was the primary means in which information itself travelled between the colonies of mankind a reputation that it would keep to the present day.
The Phoron wars were a bright and busy time for Oculum. Though an allegedly neutral in the conflict their sensationalist reporting on Syndicate’s war against Nanotrasen at times brought into the bad graces of both sides of the conflict. Large scale retaliation against Oculum for their reporting never came, both sides needed Oculum to act as their voicebox to the wider galaxy. Small scale retaliations and attacks did occur, dozens of Oculum relay stations were disabled or destroyed by both parties in efforts to stop the spread of ‘bad news’ and dozens of Oculum reporters and freelancers reporting on the conflict disappeared with the Syndicate and Nanotrasen blaming eachother for the disappearances. In the end however, Oculum’s reporting on the war did more favors for NT then it did the Syndicate whose increasing desperation towards the latter decades of the conflict was clear for all to see. Still Oculum’s presence was not entirely positive for NT. Nanotrasen’s costly failures in the war were brought to light by Oculum reporters compared to reports of surprising competence and ingenuity from the Syndicate. By the end of the Nanotrasen behemoth largely came off as bumbling giant that had finally managed to crush the comparatively small but skilled Syndicate. This portrait of the bumbling Nanotrasen and badass Syndicate, agents partially created by Oculum’s own reporting, survives in the public consciousness to this day and has had a not insignificant effect on the portrayal of the conflict in popular media.
Modern Day
Oculum though still ostensibly a news company is not a megacorpoation because you see their anchors after work every day telling you about the latest trends in megacorporate stock or whatever controversial new legislation just got passed back in the Sol system. They are a megacorporation since they are the only group in the galaxy with the infrastructure in place to make sure you the customer can know about these things going on hundreds of lightyears away as soon (or as soon as subspace transmitters will allow) as the news breaks. Each satellite also hosts a small anchorage and facilities maintained by a small permanent crew referred to as ‘keepers’ take several month long shifts on the satellite rotating between two or three crews for a single satellite. The occupants are hardly bored having to make sure the Ais on board each sat can handle the massive loads of data they process and send across the cosmos every day. However, as a perk of the job these satellite keepers get access to Oculum’s entire extended new network for free with all the movies and news the entire galaxy can provide. There are also additional facilities on board these comms stations for Oculum’s itinerant reporters who use the isolated comms satellites both to rest, refill on supplies or sometimes to hide out while the heat form particularly nasty scoop dies down. With such a vast network of satellites reporters who need to disappear often can and do, enjoying full comfy retirements on the rather well stock Oculum News satellites.
Whenever something that effects more than the backwater frontier planet it happens, there will be an Oculum associated reporter on sight taking pictures, videos and writing reports. The moment they are done compiling these reports they are uploaded to the nearest of Oculum galaxy spanning network of news relays. Thanks to the speed of the subspace communicators will reach the nearest branch office of Oculum News Network within hours. A few hours more and the initial submission is processed, the most interesting stories are sent up the chain and the most interesting and relevant end up at ‘The Eye’, Oculum’s largest news station, a massive cube shaped station surrounded on all six sides with communication equipment and pinned on all sides with the cyan neon Eye logo of Oculum news. The station is visible by the countless cargo ships that pass it by in extreme high orbit Terra. No matter how far the story gets overall, no matter if it interests and relevancy stop at the branch office, goes all the way to HQ on Terra or even if it gets no further than the local network, if they decide to run it that story will be broadcast with 24 hours of its arrival at wherever it ends up.
Even megacorporations and governments rely partially on Oculum’s information transmission capacities. In this way, Oculum is as much a company about communications as it is about news, making them the most well-informed factions in the galaxy at large and one that can get the story out to the most people the fastest. If you have something that people absolutely needs to hear Oculum, will make sure the galaxy at large can hear it. This gives Oculum its main sources of revenue that being ad revenue. Oculum is the most watched networked in the galaxy making it the best way to advertise in the galaxy. Ad spots on Oculum’s 24-hour programming schedule are hotly contested by major megacorporations to the point were bidding for ad spots is a common practice. Some of the most tightly contested spots must be auctioned off by Oculum to maintain the illusion of fairness.
This is not Oculum’s only source of income though, Oculum contracts its services out to governments itself for ‘public broadcasting’ and Emergency Messaging system services. Much of the frontier and a sizeable portion of the Orion Confederation’s public broadcasting services run off Oculum’s satellite infrastructure with taxes going directly to maintain the contracts these governments have with Oculum. Its Emergency messaging Abilities are also second to none and for a reasonable fee Oculum can inform systems in almost an instant of disasters. Oculum’s EMS systems have been credited with saving thousands if not millions of lives by rapidly spreading information of Xenomorph infestations, pirate attacks, natural disasters, and more bizarre incidents. Oculum networks can even inform neighboring systems and many System Defense Forces rely on Oculum satellites to rapidly inform neighbors of distress.
Corporations similarly use this infrastructure Oculum’s satellite networks are key to the ‘on-demand’ services to the market. Vey-Med’s contracts with Oculum has created a galaxy spanning ‘Pandemic Network’ as part of Oculum’s EMS services. Not only can Vey-Med with the help of Oculum know exactly when deadly outbreaks begin. Vey-Med can also use the service to transmit to effected areas important medical advice and quarantine guidelines. Similarly, the Blackstar Legion can effectively use Oculum’s information network to track pirates and other security threats. Even pirates themselves illegally jack onto Oculum’s network (or bribe the locate station crew for an access key) to monitor subspace channels for accidents they may take advantage of or if System Defense Forces may be heading to their location, or at the very least they make sure to tune into whatever sports competition Oculum is putting on the air.
Oculum’s entanglement with governments megacorporations and even criminals find Oculum an essential service. Oculum’s satellites are considered essential infrastructure by many goverments and are protected as such. Many foolhardy pirates have attacked Oculum’s satellites only to find their information transmitted across the galaxy leading to their swift death or capture at the hands of bounty hunters or government forces. After all, try as pirates might, they cannot outrun subspace transmissions and with little financial gain in attacking Oculum’s satellites, those lonely outposts often have little to worry from pirate activity.
Ethos
If you asked a Oculum Employee what their ethos was they would answer with a well-rehearsed single word reply ‘Truth’. Those expected to engage in public relations such as their anchors, new personalities and on the ground reporters will add more. Something along the lines of ‘Truth is one the most in demand resource of the galaxy. Just like you demand, snack foods, fancy drinks, life upgrading implants and fancy gaming consoles, you also demand truth and Oculum News Network is the only company that can deliver truth in quantities to meet the galactic demand’. There is some truth to Oculum public ethos but that’s not all the truth.
In truth, there is so much ‘truth’ in the galaxy that Oculum can’t hope to cover it all and if some truths get out there then some people may ‘overdose’ on the potent drug of truth and begin advocating for severe social, political change or worse. After all, the full truth of events like the Slaughter of Mescalero were to reach the public ear it may be too much truth for some people to handle. To prevent these ‘overdoses’ on truth Oculum carefully slims down the news to make it easily digestible for the viewing public (Oculum News Network denies this has anything to do with making more space for ads). This is not to say Oculum intentionally misrepresents events, quite the opposite, their reputation for ‘truth’ is what allows them to remain the most trusted news network in the galaxy. However, in the slimming down of stories some things are either intentionally or unintentionally omitted, something Oculum sees as a necessary sacrifice.
However, for all the stretching and diminishing of truth Oculum tolerates the one thing it does not tolerate is lies. The advantage of Oculum’s wide scale use of freelance reporters in addition to local networks is they more than one source on most stories. When notable discrepancies between stories are detected by Oculum branch offices or even local stations as per protocol an additional team of reporters is sent to investigate. Most of the time the discrepancies are just a result of minor differences in reporting style between some freelancers or local networks however sometimes these investigators find evidence of poor practices or at times outright fabrications on the part of the reporters. In such cases the reporter is fired from his position if he held from, and his biometric data or synthetic ID is permanently blacklisted from Oculum which spells the certain death of a journalist’s careers as it effectively informs the entire galaxy that the journalist makes stuff up. Corrections to stories are publicly issued often by those who spread the original story it, if anchors refuse to publicly retract a false story or correct misleading story, they also risk disciplinary action from Oculum or even blacklisting, Oculum sees this as necessary to maintain the trust of the public. The worst offenders those who dare spread the worst falsehoods or get away with spreading lies for a time often disappear entirely. In such absences Oculum makes very sure to spread the story of their disappearance far and wide along with how police can never find any trace of them.
Quirks/Questionable Activities
Oculum maintains neutrality with as many states as it can and their reporters are begrudging accepted as a staple across the galaxy except the realms of the Hegemony where the Unathi, Zaddat and Naramadi see the reporters as the troublemakers they are. This does not stop undercover agents of Oculum from running stories from within the Hegemony stories which despite the risks can incur great financial rewards and prestige if one manages to get back to neutral space alive.