Ellis Reed is a struggling reporter in the Philly area during the Depression. He takes a picture of two small boys behind a sign that says "children for sale". Lilly Palmer, a secretary at the same newspaper, discovers the photo and urges Ellis to write an accompanying story. The photo is ruined and restaged and, in today's terminology, goes viral. Ellis is promoted to a position on a New York paper but both he and Lilly are concerned about the truth of the photo, especially when they learn that the children in the staged photo appear to actually have been sold. And so we follow the consequences of "fake news". Can these two make it right? How much can you stretch the truth until it is in fact a lie?
Of course there is always a backstory - for each of them in fact. Both Ellis and Lilly are likable which makes the their faltering attempts at doing the right thing matter. The photo was real - this particular story is fiction - but the reality of the decisions made in the face of bone crushing poverty is all too true.
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