Bill Paxton's character is not a reporter, but a kind of "deep sea archaeologist." The footage at the beginning of the sunken ship is actually real footage taken by Mike Cameron, a brother (I think?) of the film's director. Paxton's character Brock Lovett wants to find a fabled jewel called The Heart Of The Ocean, formerly part of the Bourbon Crown Jewels (another royalty reference there). Cameron based the gem's history on the Hope diamond. He says that Louis XVI wore the jewel and when the Revolution came about, "the crown jewel was chopped too, cut into a heart-like shape that became known as The Heart Of The Ocean." He finds the safe of the man who owned the jewel, on the sunken ship, and when he brings it up to the surface and cracks it open, he doesn't find the gem, but he finds a clue about it: a drawing of a woman wearing it, dated April 14, 1912. Lovett speaks TO reporters (maybe that's where you got the idea that he was a reporter?) and the elderly woman sees the broadcast and gets in touch with him, asking "I was just wondering if you have FOUND The Heart Of The Ocean yet, Mr. Lovett." The scene cuts to a helicopter flying to meet the ship that Lovett and his team are on, and that's when Bodine (you spelled it right) makes the comment referring to Anna Anderson, believing Rose to be an imposter "some nutcase seeking money or publicity, God only knows what! Like that Russian babe, Anastasia!" Lovett believes she is who she says she is, because "everybody who knows about the diamond is SUPPOSED to be dead, or on this boat, but SHE knows!"
The film does not start in 1912; it starts out in 1996. That's why we see submarines and helicopters and footage of the sunken Titanic at the beginning and throughout the film.
