Spoiler : Featuring 25 existing episodes of a program which were dramas based on true stories taken from the newspaper headlines. Broadcast from 1947 until 1955.

Spoiler : My great-grandfather was featured in The Big Story radio show episode number 85, "Hard Luck Guy Who Wanted a Break and Got It." his name was John Ellert of Evansville Indiana. I would love to somehow access a copy of it, as most of the information on the story has been lost to my family. Any help you could provide would be appreciated!

Spoiler : I recently mentioned the '40s-'50s OTR true crime show, "The Big Story". A little annoying that they decided to use an alias for everyone, other than the reporter at the center of each episode. Obviously, makes it ultra-hard to track down, or look into, the actual true story

Spoiler : Sadly the only way to avoid litigation I suspect. Dragnet is perhaps more famous for that, 'only the names have been changed, to protect the innocent'. except the people feeding Dragnet information were also at the heart of the Supreme Court case of faking evidence to support illegal wiretaps. Don't be so sure all those found "guilty" were, and those who served their sentence deserve their dirty laundry to be aired.

Spoiler : The writers would have needed to alter the story for time, and to remove any not ready for prime time details Folks not happy with the changes could have become litigious or wanted compensation for their story. Just as likely they were "inspired" by a true event. Like some horror films claim.

Spoiler : I'm fine with us not being able to dig up all the stories given how corrupt many (especially LAPD) law enforcement entities were at the time. Some of these stories may even predate Miranda rights which call into question everything following the initial contact

Spoiler : The Big Story was a series that honored members of the press by featuring the most important stories they covered. That is, the series dramatized their stories in an "authentic but fictional" manner, changing the names of all involved except for the reporter. The series was successful on radio from 1947 to 1954 and also on television from 1950 to 1957. Many of the radio scripts were adapted for the TV version. There were legal concerns, mainly protecting the producers from nuisance lawsuits, but also providing the writers with the flexibility and dramatic license needed to condense complex stories into 22-24 minutes of fast-paced drama. Some key aspects of the events in each story were not masked, such as the general nature of crimes or circumstances or places of the event. Sometimes the stories changed so much the reporters were disappointed in the dramatizations. Perhaps that was alleviated by the $500 payment they received, about US$6000 in today's value, which was the same amount of money as winning the Pulitzer Price for journalism at that time! The series was produced in New York and was considered a big-budget enterprise. There were no big stars on the series, but it included New York's best radio performers, often doubling up as multiple characters. Because of the tobacco litigation in the US courts from the 1970s forward, virtually all of The Big Story scripts became part of the public record where the litigators used the Pall Mall cigarette commercials as evidence of a willful cover-up of smoking health issues. Unfortunately, not all of the program recordings are available, but savvy collectors were able to download all of the scanned scripts as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. This makes The Big Story one of the golden age's best documented series.