He's appeared before in the Crossbell games where he's also mentioned with some frequency. The short version is basically that he's a very famous journalist and has covered most major events in recent history and knows a lot about all of them, including lots of the "behind the scenes" stuff. (I hate how the games use this term but whatever) In an optional quest line in Azure he passes on info to Lloyd about some of the stuff going on in Crossbell, and he...knows a lot of things, to put it lightly.