The leading political talk show program in the United
States has been on the air for well over a half-century. As
of 2007, Meet the Press was the longest running network
program still on the air. The original studio set from the
prominent NBC News program sits in the Smithsonian Institution and its programs are preserved in the Library
of Congress.
Meet the Press was first telecast from the nation’s capital on November 6, 1947. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
Postmaster General, James A. Farley, was the program’s
first guest and the moderator at that time was Martha Rountree. Lawrence E. Spivak also sat-in as moderator on occasion and eventually took over. He was succeeded by Ned
Brooks. Over the years, some prominent NBC News network correspondents including Bill Monroe, Garrick Utley,
and Chris Wallace performed this function as well. Marvin Kalb and Roger Mudd were moderators in 1984–1985,
before Mudd left to teach in Virginia and Kalb departed
network television to teach at the John F. Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University.
The prominent weekly program has aired in many
different time slots and network locations: late nights on
Wednesday evenings, then Monday night, and Saturday,
before finally settling on the current schedule early on Sunday morning. The distinguished political newsmaker program started with a format of one news source and usually
one moderator, often joined by a group of four interviewers. The press panel of questioners has included both print
and broadcast journalists. Some of the best-known national
journalists have appeared often. David Broder of the Washington Post appeared as a panelist more than three hundred times, more any other non-NBC News staff person.
Journalists May Craig and Robert Novak also made more
than two hundred appearances. When the occasion called
for it, the guests included journalists in the news, including author Bob Woodward. In the early twenty-first century, the program sometimes featured one interviewer and a
single guest, or a few guests appearing separately, although
occasionally expanding to meet a special occasion. In 2006,
for example, Congressional candidates from Ohio and Missouri visited the program just prior to national elections.
The program had as guests all U.S. presidents and
every secretary of state since it was first initiated, as well
as prominent international heads of state including David
Ben-Gurion, Indira Gandhi, Madame Chiang Kai-shek,
Ferdinand Marcos, Fidel Castro, and Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf. Former Senate Republican leader, Bob
Dole of Kansas, appeared on Meet the Press more than two
dozen times, and, in fact, on Easter Sunday morning, 1990,
he broke the previous record of twenty-five appearances
held by Senator and later Vice President, Hubert Humphrey
of Minnesota.
The National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) program, offered over the web via MSNBC, has always been
credited for having high journalistic standards, set early by
the program’s founder Spivak. He created the basic imprint
and philosophy underlying Meet the Press and contributed
to it until his retirement in November, 1975. He drew upon
his Harvard education and experience as an editor and publisher of the American Mercury. The program has been the
center of controversy on more than one occasion. Whittaker
Chambers, for example, named Alger Hiss as a Communist working in the State Department, thus contributing to
the post-World War II Red scare. The theme of government
secrecy and reporting methods have also been frequent program topics.
Long-time contributors to the program commented on
the late Lawrence Spivak’s counsel to Tim Russert when he
first took over the program in 1991. Spivak recommended to
always prepare thoroughly and to try to retain something of
an adversarial tone, to ensure that the guests are totally candid in relating the most accurate and up-to-date information on a topic in the news. Russert, who was credited with
resurrecting and even elevating the status of the program,
joined NBC News in 1984.
When he joined the NBC network, Russert oversaw the
weekday morning Today program for a period of time. His
supervision included arrangements to have the program
staff travel abroad to cover important international events.
While with Today, he arranged the first televised meeting
with Pope John Paul. Russert’s law degree and his exposure
to the inner workings of national politics, by virtue of having worked as a special counsel to the U.S. Senate from
1977 to 1982, gave him credentials to host Meet the Press.
He became NBC News’ Washington Bureau Chief and took
over as moderator of Meet the Press on December 8, 1991.
Russert initiated a feature for the program that would permit the use of video clips from previous, historic appearances by such well-known figures as Martin Luther King
Jr. Meet the Press also became the first network program
broadcast using high definition television.
Further Reading
Rick Ball, and NBC News. Meet the Press: 50 Years of History in
the Making.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
Michael D. Murray. “The World of Change in TV News: A Conversation with Garrick Utley.” American Journalism, 14, 2,
(Spring 1997): 10–17.
Rudolph, Ileane. “Bless This Press: ‘Meet the Press’.” TV Guide
(Nov. 8, 1997): 37–39.
Tim Russert, “Meet the Press: 50 Years of History.” C-SPAN,
November 3, 1997. Available from C-SPAN Archives, Videoape 94704.
Garrick, Utley. You Should Have Been Here Yesterday: A Life in
Television News. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.
Michael D. Murray