The Big Story

Have you ever noticed that there are lots of old time radio series which center around a newspaper, or some form of journalism?

I can probably name quite a few right off the top of my head, Nightbeat, Big Town, Casey, Crime Photographer and Bright Star are the ones jumping out at me right now, but I know I'm missing a whole heap more. I'm not sure why the American listening public were so fascinated though, are you?

Perhaps it was the investigative journalism, or the fast pace and deadlines.

I recently discovered another new series which you may have noticed I've been adding to RUSC over the past few weeks. It's called The Big Story, and as you probably guessed, it centers around the newspaper business - and in particular the newspaper reporters.

The series was the brain child of producer, Barnard J Prockter, who had been inspired to create the program after hearing about a man freed from a life sentence in jail by the work of two newspaper reporters in Chicago, and was first broadcast on NBC Radio on 2nd April 1947, and ran until March 23rd 1955 - gaining quite a significant following over the years.

What was different about this series though, was that each show was a true story dramatization of a real-life crime! Each week brought the story of a different reporter, and the only continuing character was the narrator, Bob Sloane.

At the end of the weekly thirty minute show, there was a short clip about the newspaper the story had appeared in, and also a short interview with the news reporter who had written the story that particular episode was based. The reporter even won a $500 reward from the sponsor.

What's surprising is that for a show which proved to be very popular, there aren't more episodes available. We have around thirty of The Big Story episodes available in the RUSC archives, which Joy and I will be adding to RUSC over the coming weeks. 

Happy listening my friends,

P.S. Can you think of any more newspaper / journalism based old time radio series? Let's see who knows the most - comment below with your entry!