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Writer and editor Home > Blogs > Brain Droppings > Archives > 2008 > June > 18
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Enough Tim Russert, please
All right, this is getting a bit outta hand, I think.
Today, the ideologically opposite poles of the Wall Street Journal AND National Public Radio had even more … yes, you guessed it … appreciations for Tim Russert, meaning that the national media frenzy over the man’s passing is verging upon entering its second week. Sheesh.
Poor folks out in ReaderLand must be wondering by now whether John McCain would get the same sort of worship in the press if he should be so unlucky to shuffle off the mortal coil… I know I’m starting to wonder, and this is my business.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Russert was a fine man, and yes, 58 is early in terms of mortality. And I understand, as we all do, that newspapers and TV stations have a custom of making more fuss, at least a bit more, about in-house deaths than we do about those of folks who didn’t spend their careers in the media. Here at the DDN, we did honor a recently departed colleague with a story that some readers may have realized was longer than what may have been done for, say, an accountant at Wright-Patterson.
But we did a short 8-inch story and a mugshot of him. What MSNBC and NBC have been doing for Russert is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the top. It’s almost becoming a parody of itself.
And is it OK in all this to say that as a journalist and viewer, I never really thought that highly of Russert’s work? I think he asked lumpy, over-simple questions that seemed to set the world of politics in stark black and white, red and blue terms, and which did little to help the national conversation. He was belligerent and impolite, most of the times I watched him … which, admittedly, were few in recent years because I didn’t seek him out.
I’m not the only person who feels this way, I imagine … but in all the hagiography of the last few days — has there been any NEWS in any of it? — who would feel safe to suggest that maybe the guy really didn’t merit all this fuss?
If you’re looking for an example of just how out of touch the national media has become with what is really going on in the world — the rest of it, I mean — I offer the previous week.
