The Big Story
The Case of the Counterfeit Coins
Jack Adams, Los Angeles Examiner
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The Big Story dramatizes the work of newspaper reporters whose investigations uncover consequential stories. Each broadcast draws on a real journalist’s reporting, reshaping the events for radio while following the reporter through the search for facts and the people behind them.
In this episode, reporter Jack Adams of the Los Angeles Examiner pursues a story involving counterfeit coins. The accompanying account connects the broadcast to late-1937 arrests in Los Angeles and to the period’s public warnings about counterfeit money. It also notes that the program’s scripts could preserve factual details while changing the names of people who were not reporters.
The result combines newsroom drama with the suspense of an investigation: clues, interviews, and reporting decisions lead toward a story fit for publication. The series offers a vivid portrait of journalism as active, sometimes uncertain work, with the reporter’s persistence at the center.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.