Category Archives: undercover

TV is news, and a risky business… Radio and newspapers say so

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Bob Stepno

https://archive.org/download/OTRR_Dragnet_Singles/Dragnet_51-08-09_113_The_Big_Screen.mp3 The Los Angeles Daily News is the real hero in this August 1951 “Dragnet” episode, The Big Screen, part of an Old Time Radio Researchers group collection at the Internet Archive… A reporter on the paper’s TV-radio beat has … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, columnists, newspapers, photographer, Police, reporters, reporting, television, true stories, undercover | Leave a comment

The Future of News Could Be Risky

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Bob Stepno

“Inside Story” by Richard Wilson, was a 1957 episode of the science fiction series “X-Minus-One.” It featured a reporter for “Galactic News Service” (GNS) investigating a mysterious epidemic on a colonized planet. (Curiously “X-Minus-One” was for part of its run … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adventure, journalism, reporters, science fiction, sensationalism, undercover | Leave a comment

A gentleman of the press vs. ungentlemanly gentiles

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Bob Stepno

A Facebook conversation just led me to check back and see if I had ever posted a blog item about the radio adaptations of the movie Gentleman’s Agreement, and it looks like I hadn’t, other than a paragraph in my … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, 1950s, adaptations, civil rights, reporters, stereotypes, undercover | Leave a comment

Ghostwriting for equal rights

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Bob Stepno

https://archive.org/download/DestinationFreedom/DF_49-06-19_ep050-Ghost_Editor.mp3 “Ghost Editor” is a well-dramatized biography of Roscoe Dunjee, who founded the Black Dispatch, the first African American newspaper in 1915 Oklahoma City. Actor Fred Pinkard narrates the series as Dunjee in this episode of the “Destination Freedom” African … Continue reading →

Posted in 1900s, 1940s, 1950s, civil rights, editors, historical figures, newspaper crusades, newspapers, racial justice, reporting, undercover | Leave a comment

Two-fisted editor KO’s reform school scandal

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Bob Stepno

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

Doctor still thinks reporter is crazy

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Bob Stepno

Half-way into this half-hour broadcast of The March of Time, February 3, 1938, we get to hear a newspaper reporter sign himself into a mental hospital as a patient — only to have trouble getting out. Stories about New York’s … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, New York City, newspapers, radio, reporting, The March of Time, true stories, undercover | Leave a comment

Something Green for St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Bob Stepno

  The band played an Irish jig  whenever derby-wearing Michael Axford entered the scene in The Green Hornet Strikes Again, the 1941 movie serial closely based on the Green Hornet radio program. Cop-turned-reporter Axford, played by Wade Boteler in the … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, adventure, GreenHornet, movies, radio, reporters, undercover, women | Leave a comment