I’ve been rewatching the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker series on DVD and I’m wondering if any of his articles about the strange goings-on ever were published. He always seems to have them ready for publication and reading by the general public, but wouldn’t there have been some sort of fallout from publishing these stories? And how did he keep a job if none of his stories were ever published. I know there are references to other mundane stories he’s worked on, but his bread-and-butter seemed to be the strange stuff. I guess I’m just wondering if he ever got his strange stuff published. It’s never explicitly stated in the series. Or maybe I’m over-thinking it. 
Maybe he free-lanced for the Weekly World News.
Just a shot in the dark, but you may be over-thinking.
I was always under the impression that Kolchak found out The Truth and wrote it all down in the articles he submitted. And then Tony and the publishers would refuse to print it.
You only saw the articles he was working on Fridays. He wrote other articles the other days of the week.
Speaking of which, why doesn’t anyone in that show ever turn the freakin’ lights on! Even in the newspaper office, it’s always dark as hell.
Great show. As for the answer I always had the impression that at the end of the show he finished typing the article, looked at it, decided that no one would believe it, and ripped it out of the typewriter and threw it in the trash before leaving. It might have been under the closing credits, so if you stopped watching when the show was over you might have missed it.
McGavin was perfect for that part. That may be why I can’t watch “A Christmas Story.” I keep expecting a ghoul or vampire to turn up.
:dubious: May Le Noir Dieu forgive you.
I always thought they published them, but nobody believed them. Or they were re-written in a way that challenged the readers to “Believe it or Not!”
Okay, so from what I gather, he worked at INS (International News Service) which was a wire service. Basically, didn’t they just churn out stories and put them on the wire in hopes that a newspaper would pick a story up and publish it? (Kinda like the AP or UPI). He didn’t work at a newspaper per se. I always had the feeling that Vincenzo wouldn’t let him put the stories on the wire. Or perhaps, Kolchak churned out a lot of stories and put them all on the wire and sometimes the weird ones got through and sometimes nobody picked them up.
The ones I recall weren’t published, or altered by the editors to provide an uncontroversial explanation.
The non-plot episodes of X-Files reminded me a lot of the Night Stalker. Great show for it’s time. Great roles for McGavin and Oakland.
I have the DVDs as well, great series. Really brings back fond memories it was on Friday nights at 10:00pm perfect to have a sleepover with no school the next day. That night had the perfect TV line up when your 12. Planet of the Apes at 8, Six million Dollar Man at 9, then Kolchak at 10.
Scariest moment in the series:
When he is in the back of the hearse with the Zombie.
I always assumed this to be the case. He turns in enough straight articles so that they don’t fire him, but a high percentage of his articles get spiked.