On the passing of Tim Russert

 

 

Certain stories are always untrustworthy.

This includes stories written within hours of an event and stories about people who have died unexpectedly, as with Tim Russert.  

The first New York Times post about Russert's death called him "a towering figure in American journalism." The Washington Post said he "revolutionized Sunday morning television" and his death would have "a large — and lasting — impact on the work of politics and journalism for months to come."

My first thought reading all that was, "Really?" 

Tim Russert was a celebrity, no doubt. He was likeable, it seems obvious from the outpouring of affection for him. He was an important figure at NBC, where he was a vice president and the Washington bureau chief. He could get really important people to appear on his Sunday morning talk show to talk shop before its 3 million viewers. 

But revolutionary? For taking over a long-running political talk show and reviving it by — gasp! — asking tough questions? I had to look up the definition of towering because its meaning — "surpassing others; very great" — didn't fit with my view of Russert. 

I thought of him as a better-than-average commentator who loved the game and the people in it a little too much. I thought of him as more a political schmoozer than a fact gatherer, a point I made a year ago when the notion of picking up a phone to nail down facts seemed beyond him. Russert began his career as an apparatchik of politicians, hardly the best training for a professional disinterested observer.  

Tim Rutten wrote in the LA Times: 

Watching the cable news networks in the hours after his death, one was struck by the outpouring of admiration and affection from across the political spectrum and from journalistic colleagues of every sort. It was impossible not to be struck — once again — by just how incestuous and claustrophobic the Washington-based nexus of politics and journalism has become. 

Thus, in all that gush across four networks in dozens and dozens of voices, hardly a word was spoken concerning Russert's role in the recent trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That's odd because Libby's conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges was, in some large part, based on Russert's testimony. Like former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Russert was one of the high-level Washington journalists who came out of the Libby trial looking worse than shabby.  

That's the way it is when someone dies, no matter who they are. There's an immediate instinct to emphasize the good and suppress the bad. It's understandable, commendable even. But it's hardly an honest reflection of a life. It's hard to put things in perspective when you're in shock. 

Russert led a good life and did good things but it's what people will say long after the reporters have stopped typing that will be the true measure of the man.