Radio's "The Big Story" Hid Gruesome Details of Many Stories
A "Listener's Guide" for the series is now available for free download.
The realities behind The Big Story radio broadcasts were often too shocking for the airwaves. Each week, the series focused on a compelling story from one of America's newspapers, and honored its featured reporter with a cash prize. The series was a big hit from from its very first episode in 1947. Little is known, however, about the behind-the-scenes workings of this blockbuster series, or the full details of the actual news stories on which they were based. Many were of significant tragedies. Some were great triumphs that righted terrible miscarriages of justice.
The Stories Behind “The Big Story”: A Listener's Guide, is a new, free download that details the true events that were disguised by NBC and the producers. Their strategy of "fictionally authentic" dramas presented the actual reporter's name and the journalist's newspaper. The names of others, however, especially the perpetrators and victims, were disguised out of legal caution and privacy.
The Listener's Guide provides overviews of each of the 54 known surviving episodes of the series, details the original news stories. The background of the reporter honored with the "Big Story Award" is also explored. While some of the reporters were "famous," like Walter Winchell or Dorothy Kilgallen, most were unknown nationally or left journalism for other opportunities. Every Big Story reporter's career trajectory has been identified. Some had particularly inspiring stories of fortitude in the face of tough times and threats to themselves and family as they aggressively pursued the truth.
Download The Stories Behind “The Big Story”: A Listener's Guide at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/listener-s-guide-to-the-big-story-09-26-2026 The 88 page document is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. It can also be viewed at that Archive page. An alternative download location for the Guide is the transfer-it cloud service https://transfer.it/t/qpXobsoxDDYR (this link expires January 5, 2027) The file is 1.2MB.
Each Big Story episode entry in the Guide has a link to the specific Internet Archive page for that episode's resources. There are audio files in lossless FLAC or convenient MP3 for download. The recordings can also be streamed on the episode page. There is a scan of the script in PDF format. Unique to this series, however is that the research about the original incidents are in a PDF of newspaper clippings and key documents that add context and appreciation of the series, the reporter, and the difficult circumstances of the events that made it a "big story."
The Guide offers very convenient access to the audio, script, and research, with a link to the specific Internet Archive page. There is also a QR code that can be scanned by a smartphone or tablet to jump directly to the episode page on those devices.
The Big Story Project began in 2019 with important goals. The Project sought to find uncirculated episodes, upgrade known episodes for sound quality and lossless format (FLAC), and find the real backstories that were the foundation of the broadcasts. All of the goals are met, and more. We hope that more episodes can be found in the future. For all the notoriety series had in its time, and for its great financial success in radio and television, only about 1 in 8 of the radio broadcasts have been found.
The Big Story Project collection permanently resides at The Internet Archive https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22The+Big+Story+Project%22
Many thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers (OTRR) for its generous support in acquiring the recordings of multiple pioneer classic radio hobbyists, active participants in the tape transfer teams, and also for those collectors and researchers who generously supported the efforts with their skills, knowledge, and collections.
Please contact me at suspenseotr@gmail.com for more information.
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