Old Radio Times the Official Publication of the Old-Time Radio Researchers May 2018 No
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The Old Radio Times The Official Publication of the Old-Time Radio Researchers May 2018 www.otrr.org No. 97 Contents About JHeroes.Com, Pt. 1 Portrayals of Journalists in Film, Bob Stepno Fiction and Popular Culture that I JHeroes.com, taught for a few semesters as a pt. 1 1 “JHeroes.com” or “Newspaper journalism and media studies Heroes on the Air,” is a blog and professor. Wistful Vistas 4 podcast about old-time radio’s When I first started listening to portrayals of journalists. This article old-time radio podcasts around Radio Re- is adapted from my "about" page 2005, the extent to which radio searching, Pt. 3 discussion. As an old newspaper used newspaper reporter characters 5 reporter, I am fascinated by the way took me by surprise. I discovered that radio collectors who originally Acquisitions 8 other media have helped audiences form their image of the profession, sold and traded transcription discs and tapes had moved into the Promotions & from Lois Lane to the Boston Globe "Spotlight" team as portrayed in a digital era sharing mp3 files via Ads 12 Usenet bulletin boards, and then recent hit movie. Contributors: Radio drama is special in that it over the Web. I learned was using journalist characters that thousands of mp3 files of series Ryan Ellett during the golden years of the episodes are “circulating” online. Martin Grams newspaper industry... golden at least As a footnote conscious academic David Oxford in terms of the number of daily researcher, I was sad to see that Bob Stepno newspapers competing for these circulating copies usually had lost their provenance over time. readership in major cities. But radio Edited by Ryan Ellett was certainly not the first or last That is, it was impossible to tell *** who made the mp3, from what Send submissions, medium to employ journalist inquiries, and comments characters. They have been transcription disk or audio tape, and to OldRadioTimes whether file names, episode titles @yahoo.com narrators, heroes, rascals, villains, victims and comic relief through and cast lists were based on scripts, more than a century of Broadway disk labels, or a collector’s best shows, films, novels comic books guess. Copyright status of series and even songs. References to those also was sometimes debated on other media turn up from time to collectors' websites, and I time in my pages, especially in wondered whether uncertainties connection with a course on about legal ownership had led some sharers of mp3s to choose anonymity as the simplest answer to any such software for the site, it generates an RSS problems. feed that can be subscribed to as a For the past decade, collectors have uploaded podcast, although most podcast player complete or near-complete series and fragmented software will simply download the mp3 collections to archive.org, the Internet Archive, files, while most of my work is in the adding commentary with varying degrees of links and text commentary. accuracy. The Old-Time Radio Researchers There is little rhyme or reason to the Group, first organized around a Yahoo email list, order of my individual blog posts. Some has become a major contributor to archive.org as were made when I was teaching and were well as its own sites related to class discussion topics or events (http://www.otrr.org, http://otrrpedia.net, http://ot like an actor's birthday or death, or rrlibrary.org etc.). Among other things, the group Women's History Month. Other posts hosts "certified" collections of radio series were simply made because I was listening episodes, asserting that they are complete or to a batch of radio shows for recreation accurate sets of the program’s “in circulation” and one of them turned out to have a recordings. It also hosts more than fifteen journalist character. “singles and doubles” collections of series for I eventually compile these blog posts which few episodes are available. into more coherent general or analytical The OTRR Internet Archive uploads are a pages, which I originally liked to think I major resource for my personal listening and might combine as academic articles or sharing at http://jheroes.com. Other researchers, further expand into a book. But I just hosts of nostalgia radio programs, regional radio couldn't find time to do those things while clubs, and media history authors have created a full-time teacher of both news writing their own extensive Old-Time Radio or Golden and web design, so I kept nibbling at the Age of Radio websites, blogs and podcasts, blog as a discussion site for my courses sometimes focused on a dramatic genre or until I retired from full-time teaching. specific series, and I make extensive use of them to find relevant programs. Online Print Resources and Radio My project involves locating and listening to History series about journalists and searching other series for reporter and editor characters — so that I can I am a newcomer to radio research, summarize, analyze and discuss the “journalist” having started listening to old-time radio characters who appeared in serial or one-shot blogs around 2005, but my first media dramatizations. I am interested in whatever a history research was as a college senior in story shows about how newspaper reporters do 1968, back in the days of microfilm and their jobs, from popular stereotypes to details of big hard-bound volumes of printed their work process, values and ethics, or how the newspapers. I had a work-study job for a public perceives them. I also look for whatever semester building a library exhibit of facts I can find about the programs and any real significant front pages from the 1930s events and persons mentioned. under a college-wide "Semester of the My technique is to post individual episodes as Thirties" grant at the University of audio-player links in the blog — usually linking Connecticut. to the mp3 files at Archive.org, not copying them After college I was originally a to my own site — and posting some discussion newspaper reporter, later a magazine notes. Because I use WordPress blogging writer, and finally an online producer for a 2 The Old Radio Times * May 2018 * Number 97 news website. While I was in graduate school in embed movie players with trailers, clips, the 1990s, I took a couple of media history or full-length films. research courses. All of that added up to my For example, if you have trouble being fascinated by old-time journalist imagining what life was like in the days biographies, digital newspaper at Proquest and at before television, when young radio the Library of Congress, Google’s newspaper and listeners had to use their imaginations to magazine archiving project, as well as the “see” the action in radio dramas, watch multimedia work of the Internet Archive -- and the 9-minute 1938 film Back of the Mike how all of those might supplement my radio available at the Internet Archive and on explorations. YouTube. While it is no longer actively expanded, the Each of this blog’s posts — rarely Google news archive project left behind more than one a week, even during the thousands of scanned copies of magazines like most active development of the site — Billboard and small and medium size newspapers include one or more mp3 file links to old published during the Golden Age of both radio radio programs that you can download or and newspapers. Google's archives were free and stream, usually from the Internet Archive. easier to use than some of the more established Depending on your Web-viewing device commercial and academic library newspaper and software, you may see a “player” collections. icon, or you can play the program by Why newspapers? Because they often include clicking a program-name text link listings or reviews of radio programs, or news indicated on the page. stories related to some of the radio dramatizations — such as the United Press series Soldiers of the Bob’s review of his site JHeroes.com will Press or the sometimes-biographical series in the next issue of the Old Radio Times. Cavalcade of America. In writing about those series, I take screen snapshots of the newspaper Bob Stepno is a retired journalism and headlines, add them to my blog posts and pages, media studies professor, with a doctorate and link them to the full copy at Google. Radio in mass communication research, and a collectors at OTRR also have taken to digitizing professional background in newspapers, club newsletters, vintage radio fan magazines and magazines and the Web. But he always more, which I sometimes cite and use for wanted to be on the radio. illustrations. One of the most satisfying parts of this project has been getting messages back from children or grandchildren of World War II United Press correspondents or radio actors who found my blog while searching for family information. One told me that the archived newspaper clippings I had found were the only replacements the family had for grandfather's scrapbooks lost in a flood years ago. I also use IMDB.com, Archive.org and other film and radio sites as references for further information about programs, especially the radio adaptations of Hollywood films. In some cases, I 3 The Old Radio Times * May 2018 * Number 97 Bay-Area Doppelganger: Harold Peery Ryan Ellett Wistful Vistas From the Editor’s Desk One might do a double-take perusing old West Ryan Ellett Coast radio publications when coming upon Harold Peary connected to programs and behind- I’m pleased this month to have Bob the-scenes work that you weren’t previously Stepno contributing his first piece to the familiar with.