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Betty Cole Dukert, BJ '49, retired in 1998 as executive producer of NBC's "Meet the Press" after 41 years with the program. Here, the award-winning journalist and producer shares her memories of the Missouri School of Journalism and her story about climbing to the top of the world's most respected news program.

Why did you choose to attend the Missouri School of Journalism?
I intended to become a journalist from about age 13. I can't imagine why, as I knew none. Probably it was movies. Fortunately, when I began to think about specific colleges, I lived in Missouri and knew the Journalism School at MU was tops. I set my sights on going there, and my parents planned on how they could make it happen.

Betty Cole Dukert, BJ '49

What are some of the professional lessons learned here that have stayed with you throughout your career?
The most important lesson to learn at the J-School, in my opinion, is that journalism is a very special profession, as are medicine and law. Even though there are no standard licenses issued, it is a profession with ethics, involving not only what you do, but what you don't do. It is a wide and varied profession and is growing continually. It is the duty of each of us entering the field to consider and understand the specific obligations of the segment of the public we plan to serve. "History and Principles of Journalism" offered me a guideline at the J-School that I didn't fully appreciate until I was working and found that some in my field had never considered the subject relevant. And certainly, I find that large segments of the public don't see it that way, today.

What types of media experience did you gain during and right after college?
Once in the J-School, I toyed with the idea of advertising, thinking it might be a better field for females. During my senior year I worked at KFRU in Columbia by default, more or less. It seems I took a copy writing course as a junior, normally restricted to seniors. When I became a senior, the radio station needed someone to write fashion copy for a dress shop, and I was offered the position in lieu of one course. After that semester, I realized I could never happily look another fashion adjective in the face, much as I loved the subject. So if I couldn't write at length about a subject I liked, how could I deal with ones I had no interest in? That did it for my advertising career.

However, my other big discovery in that experience was the amazing power of a few little radio commercials. That turned my thoughts to broadcast journalism. Needing to stay at home after graduation, I turned down a paycheck of $25 per week as a copy writer at one local radio station to take another job at $22.50 at a brand new station (paying no room and board at home). I had about six minor titles. The staff included 16 males and me. It was a good, versatile beginning.

What was your strategy for working your way up the ladder to a career in journalism?
I found that doing a variety of duties was a great experience throughout my early work years. Whenever I felt I wasn't learning in a job or a particular office, I tried to move. My other big interest had long been political science and a hope of working in Washington, D.C. I got here after a couple of years at home, beginning in a secretarial position at USIA, hoping to move to the Voice of America.

But in the capital, I had my first glimpse of television. At the time, networks went only as far as St. Louis. And that changed my sights again. Responding to a newspaper advertisement, I applied as a secretary in an NBC vice president's office, after explaining to him that I had a journalism degree and hoped to get into television. He said he had had 15 secretaries in 16 years and assured me that if I worked for him a year, he would help to have me transferred to the NBC television station in Washington, D.C. And he did.

There I moved around in several different offices and departments, first at a secretarial job, then what later we would call a production assistant. My good fortune was that some of my offices were near the network news department. Television news was quickly expanding its programming in the early '50s, and eventually I had the chance to work for the network on the weekends, as a production assistant. Then in 1956 came the opportunity to interview for assistant producer of "Meet the Press." I never wanted to move again.

After getting the job at Meet the Press, what kept you with the show for nearly 50 years?
In 41 years with the program, I don't remember a boring day, maybe a few pleasantly quiet ones. In our research we dealt with an array of major issues from agriculture to nuclear weapons, and it provided a continuing education. It also offered the opportunity to see most of the major U.S. cities and many foreign ones. Of course, the ringside seat to view historic figures was exciting.

What was the hardest news decision you had to make during your tenure at Meet the Press?
I can't single out a specific news decision as the hardest. In general though, it was knowing whether or when to interview a person you thought was having a negative effect upon the nation, realizing that you might be encouraging or promoting the subject by the interview. We based decisions on whether that person was making waves to the extent that he or she should not be ignored by the public or major media.

What was your most challenging and/or memorable assignment for the show?
Probably one of the most difficult assignments was when I went in 1976 to Saigon as the lone MTP producer with a small crew for an interview with the new president of South Vietnam. We thought that we had an agreement for both him and his new vice president to appear together. Just before the program was to be taped and flown back for Sunday presentation, I learned the president wanted to postpone the interview for a week and didn't want the vice president to appear with him. In order to negotiate with him personally, I had to run past a line of armed guards and plead my way into speaking with him. I think that was one time being female may have been an advantage. At least I didn't get shot or arrested. But the president insisted that I be the one to inform his vice president that he was being bumped from the program, which I did, gingerly, and we were forced to postpone the taping one day. We made the last plane we could possibly take to get our recording home in time for airing. Satellites were a great joy when they became easily available!

You have won several awards for your work, including the prestigious Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism and the RTNDF First Amendment Service Award. What do these awards mean to you?
Winning the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism was a highlight of my career because of the prestige of the School, but also because of many happy memories of my days there. To be the first recipient of the First Amendment Service Award of the Radio and Television News Directors' Foundation in 1998 was another high point. It was designed for persons behind the screen - of whom there are many - in a position to influence greatly their news product and, who "through the high caliber of their work have standards of excellence that are the underpinnings of the First Amendment rights to freedom of the press."

What lessons from journalism's past do you think could be used to improve journalism's future?
"Freedom of the Press," that's what all our careers are really about. And that principle is rather shaky at the moment in many minds. All those in the journalistic field need to do their best to uphold the responsibility and privilege of this essential tool of democracy.