Screen & Radio Weekly


Screen & Radio Weekly was a nationally syndicated Sunday tabloid-newspaper-supplement published by the Detroit Free Press from 1934 to 1940 that covered film, radio, and fashion – and included a short story.

History

The concept for the publication has been attributed to Dougles DeVeny Martin, one of five 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning journalists from the Detroit Free Press, who, in April 1934, proposed – to Malcolm Wallace Bingay, managing editor – publishing a weekly tabloid supplement in full color, 16 pages covering cinema and radio entertainment "to interest adult-minded readers, with no salacious gossip and a bare minimum of press-agent :en:wiktionary:claptrap|claptrap. All factual material used, according to promotional material, was staff-written and each issue featured one short story.
The Detroit Free Press first published S&RW April 29, 1934, with a photo of Janet Gaynor on the cover – an era marked by the Great Depression, before television. Full-scale commercial TV broadcasting did not begin in the United States until 1947. Movies and radio, in 1935, according to author Donovan A. Shilling, served as a relief for people living in an era of few jobs.
On the first anniversary of the publication, circulation was 1,700,000 – reportedly more than any two other fan magazines combined.

Editors, reporters, and contributors

A few S&RW columnists who also wrote for the Detroit Free Press used pseudonymous bylines and were identified as Free Press journalists, sans the word "Detroit."
Fashion and beauty
Film
Hollywood
Managing editors
Radio
Theater
The issues of Screen & Radio Weekly include neither mastheads nor volumes nor issue numbers – only dates. The Margaret Herrick Library – the main repository of print, graphic and research materials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – holds issues of Screen & Radio Weekly.

Digital archival access

Newspapers.com
Genealogy.com
Other