Category Archives: newspapers

‘There’s Murder in the Air Tonight…’

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Bob Stepno

As with the last episode, you can push past the opening two minutes of syrupy music to get to the 13 minutes of action in Neighbor Shoots Deputy Sheriff, the second installment in our continuing story from the 1930s radio … Continue reading →

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Reporter assaulted, editor insensitive, but she makes him dinner

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Bob Stepno

My headline is about as strange as the introduction to this premier episode of “Bright Star,” which billed it as a genre-crossing “gay new exciting comedy adventure.” You should know this first episode, “The Oil Swindle,” was broadcast in 1952, … Continue reading →

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Veteran and reporter confront issues of peace and war

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Bob Stepno

The Internet Archive copy of this “Judgement Day” episode of “Douglas of the World” spells “judgment” with the central “e,” British style, which is appropriately international. The archive and the script itself identify this as the last show of the … Continue reading →

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Another journalist named Bob: Newspaper life as soap opera

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Bob Stepno

“Running a newspaper is our line of duty” — Betty Drake, co-publisher of The Trumpet, pioneer soap opera heroine “Betty and Bob,” one of radio’s first soap operas, eventually twisted its troubled-marriage plot around to journalism — not surprising, considering … Continue reading →

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Eerie control of the press hits small midwestern town

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Bob Stepno

This “Rogers of the Gazette” episode from January 1954, titled “Something’s Going On,” has a terrible pun in the first line and a hint of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” terror in the plot. (Of course, given that it’s “Rogers … Continue reading →

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Editor’s New Year Help from Investigative Twins

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Bob Stepno

From Dec. 30, 1953, here’s what was regularly billed as “another heartwarming story of a country newspaper and its friendly editor.” The series is “Rogers of the Gazette,” starring Will Rogers Jr. This episode starts with the editor giving a … Continue reading →

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America Has Room at the Inn — in Big Town

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Bob Stepno

“The power and the freedom of the press is a flaming sword; that it may be a faithful servant of all the people, use it justly. Hold it high. Guard it well!” Writer Jerry McGill, a former newspaperman, and the … Continue reading →

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Stop the Presses: Reporter Gets Christmas Off

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Bob Stepno

William Conrad, who played a city editor with a dramatic “It’s a newspaper, that’s all…” speech in the Jack Webb newsroom movie “-30-,” appears as an editor again in this Christmas episode of the “Night Beat” radio series in 1951, … Continue reading →

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Reporting from a war zone — in Montana

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Bob Stepno

The opening of this “Frontier Gentleman” radio drama from 1958 sounds appropriately like a lead sentence for a newspaper feature story: “The great chief of the Sioux Indians is Sitting Bull. He’s a rather difficult chap to meet, especially when … Continue reading →

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Philadelphia wasn’t really the story, but radio kept telling it

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Bob Stepno

While not exactly a “journalism procedural,” the romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story does feature a reporter and photographer on the trail of a high-society wedding — with the reporter literally getting in over his head. (In the swimming pool, by … Continue reading →

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