Much to his chagrin, a down on his luck reporter finds himself covering "dog-bites man" stories at a two-bit (his description) newspaper in Albuquerque. It wasn't always that way. Charles Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is, well was, a big-time reporter at big-time newspapers in New York. The problem is he'd also been fired by every big-time newspaper in New York. After a year the BIG man was pacing the newsroom floor like a caged tiger and then providence gave him the break he'd been looking for: a man was trapped in a mine shaft and he was out to milk the story for all it was worth. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" - Matthew 16:21