Vilken verklig person är karaktären Rita Skeeter baserat på?

Ingen, åtminstone inte medvetet.

I en intervju på Edinburgh Book Festival 2004 blev hon ombedd om Skeeter karaktär. Det var här vi lärde oss att Skeeter uppträdde i ett tidigt utkast till Philosopher's Stone , och hon hävdar också att Skeeter inte bygger på någon riktig person:

I love Rita. You know when Harry walks into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone? Everyone says, “You’re back” and he realises for the first time that he is famous. In a very early draft, Rita, a journalist, was there and she ran up to him. For some reason she was called Bridget—I forget why. Anyway, she detained him too long in the Leaky Cauldron and I really needed to get him moving, so I thought that I would not put her there.

As I was writing book one, I was planning the rest, and book four was supposed to be where Harry’s fame became a burden to him. It really starts to weigh on him when he is exposed to the wider wizarding world so I thought that that would be the perfect place for Rita to come in. She was still called Bridget at the time.

I didn’t realise that by the time I wrote book four I would have met quite a lot of Ritas and people would assume that I was writing Rita in response to what had happened to me, which was not in fact the truth. However, I am not going to deny that writing Rita was a lot more fun having met a few people I had met. I actually quite like Rita. She is loathsome—morally, she’s horrible—but I can’t help admiring her toughness. She is very determined to do the job and there is something quite engaging about that.

Massor av människor har gjort gissningar på vem Skeeter kan baseras på, men Rowling och hennes utgivare har varit konsekventa med att säga att det inte fanns någon avsiktlig inspiration.

Det fanns en relevant fråga tidigare i samma intervju:

Are any of your characters based on real people?

The only character who is deliberately based on a real person is Gilderoy Lockhart.

Hon är aldrig avslöjade vilka Lockhart var baserat på, även om det har gjorts gissningar i media. Om Rita Skeeter medvetet var baserad på en riktig person, föreställer jag mig att hon skulle berätta för oss - antingen att Skeeter var baserat på en riktig person, eller att Lockhart inte var den enda - eftersom hon kunde hålla den personens identitet en hemlighet. Jag ser ingen anledning för henne att direkt ligga om detta i det andra citatet.

Det här är vad jag hittade, från PotterDomain.webs.com :

Some have speculated that Rowling's fraught relationship with the press was the inspiration behind the character Rita Skeeter. However, Rowling noted in 2000 that the character actually predates her rise to fame: "People have asked me whether Rita Skeeter was invented [to reflect Harry Potter's popularity], but in fact she was always planned." "I tried to put Rita in Philosopher's Stone - you know when Harry walks into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time and everyone says, "Mr. Potter you're back!", I wanted to put a journalist in there. She wasn't called Rita then but she was a woman. And then I thought, as I looked at the plot overall, I thought, that's not really where she fits best, she fits best in Four when Harry's supposed to come to terms with his fame.

Det låter som om hon bara hade tanken och inte baserade den på någon, från vad jag forskat på (undersökte andra webbplatser också). Jag skulle kunna ha fel om det.