Flash Casey, after working his way through college by taking pictures, finds the newspaper world harder to break into than he had expected. Free-lancing, he snaps a picture of Rodney Addison, son of the Globe-Press owner Major Addison, kissing French dancer Mitzi LaRue and submits it to Globe-Press city editor Blaine. He gets a job on the paper because Blaine wants to suppress the picture. He is confined to assisting regular staff photographer Wade who gets all the credit for the pictures Flash takes. His only bright spot is a romance with Kay Lanning, the paper's society editor and sob-sister columnist. Through her he meets Lawrence, editor of the weekly pictorial magazine called Snap News that the Globe-Press publishes. Gus Payton, the photographer assigned to Lawrence but who has been bribed by Bliane to turn over his best pictures to the city desk, quits when Lawrence accuses him of double-dealing. Payton opens a camera shop that is secretly financed by gangland chief Ricker. Flash goes to work for Lawrence and, as a favor to Kay, attends the Globe-Press annual charity garden-bazaar and takes random candid shots for her society page. Among them is a picture of Major Addison with his arms thrown casually around a young girl's shoulders. Flash takes the film to Payton's shop for development and Payton alters the shot to make Major Addison and the girl to appear, respectively, to be in pajamas and a negligee, and gives the picture to Ricka. Ricka attempts to blackmail Addison with a copy of the picture but Addison throws him out, and then shows Flash and Kay a copy of the picture and fires Flash. Followed by the protesting couple, Addison leaves the building and is shot down by Ricka, Payton and their henchman, waiting in a parked car.