explaining last job

As TheSportsPredictor said, no one will care whether you have received unemployment benefits or not. And they won't hold it against you if you did.

What they'll want to know is why, and what happened, as honestly and completely as is possible.

You should tell them, preferably without making the story into a whole sorry, woe-is-me saga, although that may not be always be possible because, unfortunately, a short, stock answer probably won't do it if your interviewers are editors who also were ever reporters at all worth their salt.

It will probably be hard to get past such a response without any probing, so I think it's better to be prepared to launch into a clear, fairly complete explanation that covers what you understood to be the primary factors or problem issues -- for both you and the other person or persons who had problems with or fired you.

Then, you may have to just trust that, eventually, someone will be able see past the problem situation.

They will be able to do that either because they believe you to be past it, or because they understand clearly and agree completely with your explanation and come down on your side of things, or else, because they've decided that they believe in you, your work and the way you've presented yourself enough that they're willing to take a chance, and give you one, too.