How the Daily Planet journos are just as much superheroes as Superman

One of the best parts of the 2025 reboot of “Superman” is that it wasn’t just the Man of Steel who saved the world.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

While Superman faced off against Lex Luthor after a lengthy one-on-one with his clone Ultraman, it was the journalists at the Daily Planet who drove the final nail in the villain’s downfall by publishing an exposé that revealed his role in Boravia’s invasion of Jarhanpur and his orchestration of a character assassination campaign against Superman.

Given the deeply polarized political climate today, when journalists are often demonized for simply doing their jobs, it was meaningful for a superhero blockbuster to portray reporters in a positive light — showing that a pen and paper, a recorder, and a laptop can be just as mighty as the powers of a Kryptonian.

In celebration of this year’s Cebu Press Freedom Week, which begins today, here’s a look at the journalists of the Daily Planet and how they performed in the film, to see who truly embodies the paper’s slogan, “The Voice of Metropolis,” and what we, as journalists, can take away from their characters.

Perry White, Cat Grant, Steve Lombard, and Ron Troupe

As the film juggles a large cast, these characters barely get screen time. However, the Daily Planet’s official Instagram Broadcast Channel offered promotional articles penned by these characters, giving fans a deeper look into their reporting styles.

Ron Troupe (Christopher McDonald), the paper’s political reporter, tackled LuthorCorp’s ties to Metropolis Mayor Buck Sackett, who was running for Senate. He noted that Sackett’s opponents referred to him as “Luthor’s puppet.”

Sports editor Steve Lombard (Beck Bennett) teased Clark Kent for his aversion to adverbs in his Superman front-page story, jesting that, “In sports writing, you learn that the sentence is the modifier.”