Annie Frederick

Annie Frederick, (PROSE: Operation London) often known as just A. Frederick, (PROSE: UNIT's New York Operation Expansion, Operation Mannequin, UNIT's Position on The London Incident, et al.) worked for UNIT in the early 2000s as a Staff Sergeant, later Captain and then Sergeant, who dealt with coordinating with the press, often feeding them misinformation-filled stories to cover up alien incursions. She regularly used a secure operations board on the UNIT website to communicate with other officers.

Biography
Staff Sergeant A. Frederick filed an embargoed press briefing around 12 February 2005, which documented Major A Highway's recent job at New York Liaison Office, and his plans to reorganise the UNIT branch in North America into a "pivotal single site operation". (PROSE: UNIT's New York Operation Expansion) It seemed Major Highway was successful, as in 2009, Doctor Martha Jones visited the New York UNIT HQ during the 21st century Dalek invasion. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

Just after midnight on 27 March 2005, Staff Sergeant A. Frederick told other officers on an operations board on the UNIT website that "press speculation [had been] mainly contained", with "simple truth acknowledgement and standard position maintained." (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) A. Frederick filed an embargoed press briefing around that time, which sought to assure the press that, while there was a danger posed to national security, it was not proof of alien life. Furthermore, the briefing stated that the agressors were merely made from ordinary plastic, and that UNIT would not be commenting on the suggestions that the aggressors were terrorists or robots. (PROSE: UNIT's Position on The London Incident) She mentioned the content of her statement on the operations board. She asked how the footage on the web was going to be handled, to which Lt David Judd responded. Later, she explained that she was trying to seed the press with a theory that the dummies only appeared to move from a combination of faulty plastic and a gas explosion causing the air inside the plastic to expand, making people only think that the dummies were moving. (PROSE: Operation Mannequin)

On 28 June 2006, (PROSE: Operation London) or by other accounts, on 6 March 2006, (TV: Aliens of London, PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters, et al.) or even prior to 26 May 2006, (PROSE: Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT) Annie Frederick responded to Major Jenny Maguire on an operations board, who believed that containment of the alien craft that crashed into the Thames was hopeless. Frederick didn't agree, noting that there was still a chance that it was a hoax. She later mentioned that a press conference was being arranged, and shortly after, told the officers that "he" had arrived, and that Number Ten had already made a pass for him. (PROSE: Operation London) When a delegation of experts on aliens were sent to 10 Downing Street, including the Ninth Doctor and Muriel Frost, they were all electrocuted by Jocrassa Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen and Asquith Slitheen, barring the Ninth Doctor who managed to survive. (TV: Aliens of London, PROSE: Operation London, Number Ten, Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT) Shortly after, A. Frederick was now a Captain, and she spoke to Major Maguire about the deaths on an operations board; Frederick told Maguire that the acting PM wanted to speak to Maguire about the deaths and the involvement of the Doctor at the acting office in Westminster. (PROSE: Number Ten) The press briefing about the deaths was actually filed by Corp C Powers, not Frederick. (PROSE: Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT)

Now just a Sergeant, A. Frederick was shocked when Sgt Catherine Petts shared a report on Rose Tyler that documented Mickey Smith's usage of www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk to share sensitive information about UNIT. Sgt J Frinkstein changed the passwords to the site, and while Major Maguire suggested that they instead just insert misinformation onto the site, Frederick denied the suggestion, as she didn't have "time to knock up a load of fake conspiracy theories and fudged reports about aliens." (PROSE: Rose Tyler)

On Christmas Eve, Sgt Catherine Petts informed other UNIT officers that the Guinevere One probe went missing; A. Frederick was informed by Llewellyn that it was due to "momentary signal failure, orbital window etc", though she noted that Llewellyn had a "rabbit-in-big-scary-headlights look about him when he said it." She also told the press that UNIT had no position on Guinevere One outside of their general "support[ of] mankind's peaceful expansion into the stars" and the construction of a secret mission control centre. She scolded Catherine Petts for not taking the situation seriously when (PROSE: Guinevere One) the Sycorax declared their invasion transmitted to televisions and computers. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, PROSE: The Christmas Invasion) Major Richard Blake told Petts and Frederick that the PM had arrived at Tower Ops, telling them to "be respectful [and] supportive", but to not let her think that she owned the place. (PROSE: Guinevere One)

After the Sycorax leader killed Major Blake and Daniel Llewellyn, and after Harriet Jones instructed Torchwood to destroy the Sycorax spaceship on Christmas Day, (TV: The Christmas Invasion, PROSE: The Final Darkness, The Christmas Invasion) Sgt Catherine Petts spoke of the clean up operation and Major Jenny Maguire confirmed the death of Major Blake, Frederick informed them of the press-related clean up; it was by her account, tricky, as most of "Fleet Street" were in holiday cottages in the Cotswalds, leaving only a skeleton crew of office juniors who were only focused on putting out the "story of their lives". Frederick activated the protocol Delta-Exec and believed that they should only tell the press as much of the truth as they could handle. Frederick also informed the other officers of a directive sent from the PM's office, that the spacecraft blew up of "its own accord", with nothing else being involved. (PROSE: Project Rooftop)

Personality
Frederick was succinct, with lots of her interactions with other officers being straight to the point. (PROSE: Operation Mannequin, Number Ten, et al.) Frederick did have flair, however, and took pride in her stories and theories she seeded to the press. (PROSE: Operation Mannequin) She had a humorous side, (PROSE: Operation London, Guinevere One, Project Rooftop) and she also looked at situations from different perspectives. (PROSE: Operation London) Frederick was also bold, being willing to speak back to her superiors and fellow officers. (PROSE: Rose Tyler, Guinevere One)

Behind the scenes
Not unlike M Osborne and C Jones, Annie Frederick seems to be named after, or created in homage to, Annie Frederick, a real world publicist who worked on web-based Doctor Who content during the early 2005 revival era.