Martha Rountree

Martha Rountree (October 23, 1911 – August 23, 1999) was an American pioneering broadcast journalist and entrepreneur. She was the creator and first moderator of a public-affairs program, first on radio as The American Mercury from June 24, 1945, and as Meet the Press on the NBC television network from November 6, 1947. She remains the only female moderator in the over-six-decade history of the show.

Born in Gainesville, Florida, Martha Jane Rountree was raised in Columbia, S.C. Her father Earl was in sales, at times in real estate, and at other times, selling automobiles, but he was not successful; he died when Martha was 16, and as she later told a reporter, "he left us with absolutely nothing." In order to pay her way through the University of South Carolina, she worked for the Columbia Record newspaper. Unable to finish her university education for financial reasons, she used her interest in journalism to find work,taking a job as a reporter with The Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Florida.

In 1938, she moved to New York City from Tampa and worked as a freelance writer. In 1944, she and her sister Ann founded a production company, Radio House, which prepared singing commercials and transcribed programs. One of their ideas was produced by the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945; it was Leave It to the Girls, which had a panel of one man asking women celebrities questions that had been sent in by viewers. In 1946, eleven years after Lawrence E. Spivak purchased the magazine The American Mercury, she sent in an unsolicited article which was published. From 1947 to 1954, she worked as a roving editor for the periodical. Because of her experience in radio, Spivak asked for her critique of a radio show he used to promote The American Mercury.

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