Matthew Matthews

Matthew Matthews is a major character in ''How to Survive High School. ''He runs a news program on the school's TV channel, but is hopelessly corrupt. His program is marred by lies, footage manipulation, and ridiculous gossip, as well as an extremely one-sided talk show where he doesn't give his guests any time to talk. He is beginning his sophomore year of high school in Book 1.

Personality
Matthew is a hopelessly corrupt news anchor for the school's news program. He is, on top of biased and manipulative, an awful journalist who blazes eye-catching (and unverified) headlines for attention and viewing, which are usually proven false shortly afterward. He is extremely greedy, willing to do anything for a story and completely unafraid of who he has to crush to get to the top. He doesn't care about anyone but himself, and seeks to seduce Venice several times throughout the series simply because she's rich and influential--something he dreams of being. Matthew is cowardly, vain, and even somewhat heartless, and refuses to apologize to those whose reputations he tries to ruin on his show.

Appearance
Matthew has a round face with a prominent nose, neatly coiffed and parted brown hair, and brown eyes. He is probably the best-dressed student in school, as he usually wears a brown suit complete with a tie.

Book 1: The New Kid
Matthew first appears after Kendall meets Leo while she sits in her English class. He approaches her and starts prying into her relationship with the new kid. At first, Kendall ignores him, but when he keeps insisting she snaps and tells him to go away. Matthew leaves her, murmuring about having conducted a "survey" (which was extremely skewed and inaccurate). He is seen again watching the fight between Ace and Leo.

Matthew is featured prominently in the chapter about Venice's missing Louis Antoinette gemstone, wherein he becomes the prime suspect due to his greed and corruption. He harasses Rin Shikibu and Ms. Periwinkle to get stories out of both of them and to frame them for the crimes, even though neither one committed it. When approached by Venice and Arthur, he tries to get the story out of them, and when that fails, he settles on pickpocketing Venice by seducing her with juicy gossip and then swiping her wallet from her purse while she isn't looking. Arthur gets her wallet back, but ultimately realizes that Matthew's nature proves he is not the thief, as he knows when to stop and would have had no reason to steal the wallet if he had stolen the necklace.

Due to his pilfering nature, he is heavily suspected of being behind the theft of Spencer's PLPZ, but seems disinterested in it... until he realizes how much its worth, and promises to help Spencer get it back. In truth, though, he puts out advertisements for it as if it were his so he can get it instead. Just before Leo's football tryouts, Matthew hosts both him and Ace Dienf on his late-night talk show, Meet Up With Matthew, during which he behaves selfishly and refuses to let either of them speak. During the football tryouts, he hops on the Leo bandwagon and tries to sell cheap t-shirts for a ridiculous price.

After that, he is not seen again until after Leo's locker room incident, wherein he ruthlessly accuses Leo of being a pervert in an attempt to garner viewers. He is last seen at the homecoming game, which he presumably managed to escape at some point during its collapse. He is the one in charge of covering much of the book's epilogue about what happened to the different characters.

Trivia

 * His name is alliterative, and chosen for its nice ring as a news anchor's name.
 * Although he dreams of being a journalist, he has awful grammar and writing skills.
 * He has kleptomania.