By Geoffrey Sorensen

Renowned television news anchor Maurice DuBois confessed to University students that he thought his career was over before he even finished his first live report. Recounting his follies as a fledging TV news reporter, the now successful CBS anchor advised journalism majors Wednesday night on how to break into the industry and survive the occasional blunders.

The co-anchor of the CBS News 5 to 7 a.m. newscast said that he worked hard and used his contacts to land his first on-air job as a reporter for a local Seattle TV station.

DuBois was unprepared for his first live report, he said, and feared that his career was finished.

At 23, DuBois was assigned to cover an Independence Day fireworks display.

“I was so nervous, my mouth was dry,” said DuBois. “I had to be sweating through whatever I was wearing.”

He had plans of pointing to the fireworks in action during his report. The anchor in the studio said that the show had begun and then tossed it to the cub reporter.

DuBois garnered laughs from his Dempster Hall Studio A audience when he recalled his panicked, deer-in-the-headlights face.

“Oh my goodness, I’ve come this far to ruin my career,” he said about what he was thinking at the time.

He had earned that job after talking to one of his Northwestern University professors, who happened to be the general manager of the CBS station in Chicago where DuBois had interned, landing the job of production assistant.

“I could barely afford my rent and lived in my car,” he said. “I think everybody has a story like that.”

He worked his way up to KING-TV in Seattle before coming to New York to anchor NBC 4’s morning newscast. He also frequently filled in on NBC’s “Today” show and had other network assignments. He moved across town to CBS 2 two years ago.

DuBois said that his alarm wakes him up at 3:30 and that he is in the office by 4 a.m., where he has an hour to go over the rundown with producers. If he has an interview to do, he would already have done the preparations the day before.

He suggested that students not go after only the on-air jobs and that they focus on learning the craft.

“I think you have to learn the journalism first,” he said. “Don’t get caught up with the bells and whistles.”

The anchor said his favorite part of the job is, “being at the center of things that are important to people. Especially when it’s something that matters.”

He said he does not know what else he would be doing if he were not doing this, except maybe playing centerfield for the Yankees.

The subject kept coming back to the future of journalism. DuBois was curious to know how students consume news and where they think the business is headed.

“It really is the wild, wild west,” DuBois said of the Internet’s ability to be integrated with broadcast news reporting. “I don’t think you can grow up in this day and age and not have a handle on the Internet.”

Anchors and reporters from his station and his competitors now regularly write in their own blogs, but DuBois was admittedly unsure of where the trend is headed.

“There’s an expectation that it has to grow,” he said.

DuBois shares his experience with students.