I don't think I've ever used newsies. I just can't see what they're for.
Can I suggest your friend looks at Phiona as a possibility, especially if Lucius is already going to be dropping scheme markers into the fighting area (she gets her +ve flips from any scheme marker, not just friendly)? She provides some offensive threat, and makes it harder to target nearby journalists.
Nellie 2 can teleport Auguste very long distances from turn 2 or 3, so maybe putting bombs on him & chucking him upfield to drop those & then scheme for Power Ritual etc. would also force you to divert some key piece away from the rest of the crew? Anyone chasing him down is going to be getting distracted, and he's quite tanky (again, LLC plus his ability to reduce damage with distracted) and if they're chasing him they're not attacking the models in the centre.
False witness would be good for Ensnare, as would Nellie 2's shockwave that drops a scheme marker. The false witness will lose manipulative in order to drop the two scheme markers, but if they're near Phiona that might not be such a big issue.
I'm sure your friend is already aware of this, but I feel the best approach with Nellie is to distract opponents, diffuse their attention by sending Auguste away to score points and generally blunt their attacks. Others will play her much better than I, but generally I find that when I win with Nellie it's because I've scored a lot of my points rather than denied my opponent a lot of their points, if that makes sense. I think that I generally ignore my opponent and try to score my points (or set up to threaten to score) early.
Hope those thoughts spark some new lines of investigation, best of luck to your friend in unlocking Nellie!