Category Archives: Drama

The reporter and “The Signalman”

Posted on February 6, 2017 by

Sorting out a stack of CDs of podcasts I downloaded more than a decade ago, I discovered this reporter-centric episode of “Lights Out,” a suspenseful 1940s series. http://otrrlibrary.org/OTRRLib/Library%20Files/L%20Series/Lights%20Out/Lights%20Out%2046-08-24%20(008)%20The%20Signal%20Man.mp3 This copy is playable or downloadable from the Old Time Radio Researchers … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, adaptations, Drama, podcast, reporters, suspense | Leave a comment

Two-fisted editor KO’s reform school scandal

Posted on September 2, 2015 by

News about a real-life judge sentenced to jail for taking kickbacks from a for-profit jail reminded me of this Big Town episode, with its crusading newspaper editor sending a 17-year-old copyboy undercover to expose a corrupt and barbaric reformatory. “A … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, Drama, newspaper crusades, newspapers, undercover | Leave a comment

Hey Lucky, get me rewrite!

Posted on January 12, 2015 by

My cousin in Memphis just told me she heard an episode of the classic series called “Night Beat” recently on a satellite radio show made up of golden age broadcasts. I told her she’d found one of my favorites, and … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, Chicago, columnists, Drama, ethics, reporters, writing | Leave a comment

The bloodstained Chicago paper is a clue

Posted on November 2, 2014 by

Juke Box Melodrama Newspapers as an “old media” technology survived the 1950s and struggled into the next century, but this May 1951 episode of Night Beat features an even rarer form of communication — a coin-op juke box with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Chicago, Drama, reporters | Leave a comment

Reporter had spunk, but soup-opera didn’t last long

Posted on April 24, 2014 by

Jane Endicott, Reporter — premiere, January 5, 1942: I’ve had this short-lived series  tucked away on my “Soaps and Romance” page, although these adventures of a young woman reporter are not a typical soap-opera or romance series with cliff-hanger episode endings and … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, Drama, editors, ethics, journalism, women | Leave a comment

Lime with a twist: Violets, Violence and Recycled Radio

Posted on June 10, 2013 by

Here’s a special case of radio recycling, another Orson Welles’ script from “The Lives of Harry Lime,” turned into a “Europe Confidential” journalist-hero script a few years later, part of a pattern I began writing about some months ago. This … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, Drama, ethics, Europe, foreign correspondents, Orson Welles | Leave a comment

Covering the Waterfront

Posted on February 27, 2013 by

Two of my former Emerson College students have wound up with new jobs back in Massachusetts at the New Bedford Standard-Times on Buzzard’s Bay, which is a fine excuse to post this item about the radio and film stories titled … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1950s, Drama, reporters | Leave a comment