The Liberty Tree is a fictional newspaper that serves Liberty City in various Grand Theft Auto games. The Liberty Tree has been "Promoting Family values for over 50 years", and has existed for at least 50 years of service. Their slogans are "Yesterday's News Today" and "News That Smells Great". Each issue costs $2.00 in GTA III , and $1.00 in GTA IV. It can be read online as well. It is a play on The New York Times. You can read the newspaper in the internet cafe or in your safehouse (no computer in Broker safehouse and South Bohan) located all around Liberty City. When you log onto a computer, you pay $1, but computers in your safehouse don't cost anything.
Events
The Liberty Tree building on Staunton Island.
GTA Liberty City Stories
The map that accompanied the game had a map provided by the newspaper. Liberty Tree was featured prominently in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories through Ned Burner, who pretends to be a preacher. He gives missions to protagonist Toni Cipriani from a confessional box in the Liberty City Cathedral saying that they will help save him. The first mission is to retrieve a briefcase from an FBI informant before he hands it to the FBI, and then delivering it to the Liberty Tree offices. Cipriani then steals another briefcase containing diamonds, and then creates chaos on Staunton Island whilst driving a Firetruck. The final mission for Burner was killing three celebrities (Faith W., DB-P and Black Lightman) on their way to an interview with Liberty City Free Radio. Burner would report on each story: the first about an athlete on steroids, the stealing of diamonds, chaos on Staunton Island and the death of three celebrities. Burner would eventually be killed by Cipriani on orders from Donald Love as Burner witnessed the killing of Avery Carrington. The user guide for GTA LCS is in the form of a copy of the Liberty Tree.
GTA III
Liberty Tree does not feature during Grand Theft Auto III, however a Liberty Tree website was used as a teaser site. Articles appeared on the characters such as Salvatore Leone, Toni Cipriani, Joey Leone, Luigi Goterelli, Donald Love, Barry Harcross and Mayor Miles O’Donovan.
GTA IV
According to the GTA IV documentary, A History of Liberty City, the first Liberty Tree newspaper came out in 1835, however, citizens complained about this as they wanted less political news and more dirty news, like murder and rape.
In Grand Theft Auto IV, the Liberty Tree can be read on the in-game internet on the Liberty Tree website. It shows the happenings of the city, along with Niko's exploits. The Liberty Tree name is found on some Steed trucks. A Liberty Tree newspaper can be seen in certain interiors, with Manny Escuela on the front page.
News reporters
Newspaper sections
- Business
- Classifieds
- Column
- Comics
- Entertainment
- Employment
- Forum
- GORE
- Horoscope
- Hypocrisy
- Lifestyle
- Lottery
- Marketplace
- News
- Puzzles
- Real Estate
- Reviews
- Sports
- Traffic
- Travel
- TV Listings
Trivia
- In GTA IV, the newspaper misspells Manny Escuela's name on the front page, spelling it as "Escuella". It also lists the date March 3, 2005 as a Tuesday, when in reality it was a Thursday, which is also somewhat erroneous, as GTA IV is set in 2008. However, as the bottom of the newspaper reads "Bronx Crime" (a real location as opposed to its Grand Theft Auto counterpart Bohan), it can be presumed that this was concept art early in development, which would explain the inaccuracies.
Gallery
See also
- List of Liberty Tree articles - GTA III
- www.libertytreeonline.com - GTA IV