The Big Story

Background on this episode cannot be found, but here are newspaper clippings...

I could not find a source for the archives of the Tulsa Tribune, which is likely where Bulloch's "big story" can be found.

Big Story 50-01-04 (145) Murder and a Frustrated Father [Sam Melnick, Kansas City, United Press] AFRS

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This episodes news clips...


We could find no information about our hero reporter

The true... and tragic... story...

Big Story 50-01-11 (146) Gambling & Divorce Can Mean Murder [Frank McCullough, Reno Gazette]

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This episode reminds me of the line from Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues: "I shot a man in Reno..."

Newspaper clippings...

Our hero reporter had a great career...

McCulloch died in May 2018. Note the spelling of his name is different than in some clippings above. Seems like The Big Story publicists got the spelling wrong! (And so is our file name!) In the script, it appears as "McCullock" -- but The Big Story scripts often used phonetic spellings, especially for the pronunciation of Pall Mall, which is always in the scripts as "Pell Mell." Here's the link to the obit and some highlights from it...
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Frank McCulloch, who covered the Vietnam War from the front lines and later worked as editor for newspapers across the U.S. during a half-century journalism career, died this week in Northern California. He was 98... McCulloch died Monday at a Santa Rosa nursing facility where he'd been treated for a brief illness, according to Warren Lerude, a longtime friend and colleague... The son of a rural Nevada rancher, McCulloch got his start in journalism at the Sagebrush, the student newspaper of the University of Nevada, Reno... He covered crime, sports and politics for the Reno Evening Gazette starting in the late 1940s and later served as Saigon bureau chief for Time-Life News Service during the Vietnam War...
"I wasn't any genius," McCulloch later told the University of Nevada alumni magazine. "I just had the sources." Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism presented McCulloch its highest award in l984 "for singular journalistic performance in the public interest" and "overarching accomplishment and distinguished service to journalism."

Coverage of his death in the Reno Journal-Gazette [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
A 2014 profile of him, the stops he made during his career, and his advice to young journalists [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This script may be a record for how short the time was between the actual events and its "authentic fictionalization" on the show! It was only about six months!

Big Story 50-03-01 (153) New Facts About a 26 Year Frameup [Ralph Goll, Detroit Free Press]

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Today's newspaper clippings....

Our hero reporter left newspaper work in the 1930s, but it seemed he came back whenever fiction writing was not working out (he wrote for True Detective magazine and others, as well as books). Here he is in a raincoat looking at a crime scene.
That picture is from an announcement about a presentation reviewing his newspaper career.
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Goll died in 1957.

And now, the true life story... but first the original crime and the trial...

Our hero reporter is involved in the exoneration... a quarter century later...
(images are big, so click to see full and larger image)


He wrote some Lone Ranger and Green Hornet scripts!
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And a strange incident involving our reporter...

Big Story 50-06-21 (169) Death In the Family [William Noble, Lapeer Michigan Press] AFRS UPGRADE

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"Death in the Family"

It all seemed like just another The Big Story broadcast...


Then it got interesting...


The incident was picked up by newspapers around the country. If the murderess did not want attention, she could have just let things pass. From what I was able to pick up about the case, she may have held a grudge against our hero reporter, William T. Noble, whose friendliness toward her led to her confession, weeks after the crime. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...

The program did air, despite the lawsuits...


It's hard to find information about this episode's newshound. He was a crime reporter, spent some time in California running some small newspapers, sold them, and appears various times back in Detroit working for Free Press (or as they called it there "The Freep") and then what seem like many freelance gigs for newspaper Sunday magazine sections through the early 1970s around the country. This had to be a very haunting case for him throughout his career for the sheer brutality of it.

It was easy to find the original news reports because of the coverage of the lawsuit that gave dates and names. Here are the literally gory details and the trail of deceit...

The 1940 Census record of the household...

The case begins to break. The more she talks with police and Noble, the more the story falls apart. She confesses, and is brought to trial...


She was eligible for parole review in the late 1950s, but there is no record of her having gotten it.

Big Story 50-07-12 (170) Shot Gun & Fatal Accident [Bill Griffiths, Youngstown Vindicator] AFRS

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"Shotgun and Fatal Accident" -- no luck on this one at all! Griffith's paper is not available online, and by the time the program was broadcast he had moved on. No clues in the storyline (it's an unfortunately generic tragedy) could help place it, nor could any background information on him be found.

The script can be downloaded at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
This is actually #172 -- please correct your file name after downloading if it has not been changed already.

Here are the newspaper clippings...

Since we have no original crime information for this episode, this is a good opportunity to insert this item, instead. It's an interview with producer Bernard Prockter. The TV series had recently started, and they discuss how the radio series began and how the stories are found.

Thanks bojim1 and greybelt

Best regards

Art

Big Story 50-10-18 (186) Puritan Morality and Violent Death [Albert I Prince, Hartford Times] UPGRADE

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Reporter Albert Prince was an acquaintance of the victim in his story... but I doubt he suspected anything that was going on in the victim's life until he unraveled the story...

No information about the reporter was found other than he seemed to have been in the newspaper business and out of it a few times.

The newspaper clippings are quite innocuous...

The story gets stranger and stranger... with a "strange" religion (at that time in the US)... meteorology... an affair (or two, or three, or more)... and a warning about the dangers of dancing to happy marriages...

Thanks bojim1 and greybelt
Best regards
Art

Big Story 50-11-08 (189) Bobby Sox Hustling, Girl Gangs & Vice [NY Journal American, Paul Schoenstein]

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"Bobby Sox Hustling, Girl Gangs & Vice"

The actual story could not be tracked down. The reporter spotlighted in this episode is Paul Schoenstein of the New York Journal-American. Their archives have not been digitized. Schoenstein might be considered to be a classic crusading reporter that one might see in old movies. He was highly influential and well connected with a high skill in getting to the gist of stories, and being a catalyst for action on behalf of the public. He fit in well with the reputation of Hearst newspapers of the era, but was highly respected by his peers.

Because rival papers never mention the work of competitor reporters, it's hard to discern exactly what event or action is adapted in the episode. It is likely that it is a composite of vice raids and police corruption stories in the mid-1930s related to the operations of Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano.

Schoenstein and his crew won a Pulitzer for finding penicillin for a dying girl. The story was published on August 12, 1943 and detailed their search. (Remember, it was wartime, and there were many shortages and disruptions to supplies as many goods, including medical supplies, were diverted to troops and other efforts). Schoenstein got the drug released by a call to the Surgeon General. The girl unfortunately died two months later.

Smithsonian Magazine has a feature about newsrooms of that time at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
There is a picture with Schoenstein in the background, on the phone, which he worked constantly to develop contacts and assign reporters.

Shoenstein hired Dorothy Kilgallen to write the Broadway column that made her famous.

One of the many obituaries when he died in 1974:

Trivia:
His son, Ralph, wrote a book about him, Citizen Paul, which was re-released as Superman and Me. Ralph had a distinguished career as a writer, biographer, humorist, ghost writer, and spent some time at National Lampoon. The Animal House character of "Donald 'Boon' Schoenstein," played by Peter Riegert, was named after him.

Trivia:
The New York Journal-American was where Columbia Journalism student Walter Bazar began as a reporter after graduation and had a career spanning for many years, probably until the paper folded in 1966. Bazar may be OTR's biggest one-shot wonder, penning On a Country Road for Suspense. There's a good chance he worked for Schoenstein at some time.

Thanks greybelt andbojim1

Best regards
Art

Big Story 50-11-15 (190) A Dead Certainty [Kenneth McCormick, Detroit Free Press] UPGRADE
Can't be more certain than that!

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This story came to a close very quickly -- with the suicide of the murderer...

First, the show clippings

Finding the original crimes is easier when the reporter is still working at that particular newspaper. The paper usually provides detail about the real details a few days before the broadcast.


The Big Story writers and editors always kept the reporter name intact, and usually kept the locale. The trick is finding the year of the incident; in this case, it was in the paper's promo for the episode. It has been rare that the original stories were bylined, so the reporter's name is not usually helpful in the searches.

Here's the original story... be careful who your neighbors are... and when you try to cover up your crime by making it look like someone else did it, your conscience may grind at you...

Thanks greybelt andbojim1

Best regards

Art

Big Story 50-11-29 (192) Killer With Mind Of Little Boy [TR Johnson, Salt Lake City Tribune]

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"Killer with the Mind of a Little Boy"

The episode newspaper clippings...

The gruesome story... and once you read the facts you wonder if today's medical imaging and greater awareness of mental illness might have diagnosed our killer's brain injury when it happened...  and prevented the tragedy...


The coverage was so in depth in this edition of the Telegram that I had to put it all in a PDF that can be downloaded here [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  It includes maps, conversations with the killer, and much more.

Our hero reporter passed away in 1967. He was active and respected member of his community in civic positions when he was not working as a journalist, even serving as Ogden's police chief!

Thanks greybelt andbojim1

Best regards

Art

Big Story 50-12-06 (193) Dictionary & Telephone Line Lead To A Killer [Bernard Beckwith, Denver Post]

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