Tim Russert

The coverage of the passing of NBC News Bureau Chief Tim Russert was both stunningly complimentary of him and difficult to explain as why one reporter was glorified as such a deity at the same time.

I liked Tim Russert.
He seemed like a guy that was a lot like myself, with a great interest in sports and politics along with being a strong family person and his work was excellent.
Russert's Meet the Press was a must see for the political junkie and the casual observer of the scene.
His weekend program on MSNBC and earlier on CNBC was a must tape every weekend for me and in many ways,I enjoyed it even more than Meet the Press.
His questioning of guests was tough,but fair and those questions came to those from both sides of the batters box unlike some from the left (Olbermann) that refuses to have right leaning opinions on their programs or from the right (O'Reilly),who invites opposing views only to not allow them to speak or to belittle any opinions that are not similar to theirs.
Tim Russert was not a screamer and certainly did not come off as shrill by any means,again unlike many of the political commentators of today.
His love for the Rust Belt town of his youth (Buffalo) mirrored that of my own and his support of the city of Buffalo was very laudable.
I have always held those that had not forgotten where they came from in high regard,it is so easy for anyone to forget humble beginnings when one is enjoying the crest of success.
So before you read the following,keep in mind that what you read is not about Tim Russert.

The coverage by MSNBC was over the top,overdone and frankly not always in the best of taste.
I watched some of the programming that was shown,but in fairness-I had seen much of it before.
I find it incredibly difficult to believe that the only thing newsworthy in the world for a 72 hour period was the passing of a newsman.
An incredibly talented newsman and well liked newsman,but again there are so many other stories and events out there that seemed to be put on hold by the NBC family while NBC saluted Russert leaving those that were looking for more than a look back at the life of Tim Russert from their news network of choice.
Since the weekend was looming,a proper decision could have been made by running a crawl on all NBC and MSNBC coverage that CNBC (since the stock market closes for the weekend) would be showing Russert related programming as a tribute to their fallen comrade.
That move could have satisfied all viewers looking for all things.

I understand that the loss of Russert was a huge shot to the department of news at NBC both as a business and personally to his co-workers,but was it necessary for the war,the presidential election,oil issues among many to placed on hold for the weekend to hear what seemed to be everyone from Tom Brokaw on down to the guy that filled the water cooler pay tribute?
As a MSNBC viewer,it seemed to be too much and that is before the canonization of Russert.
Russert loved his son and both were an important part of each others lives,but was it newsworthy to hear this 25 times an hour?
Funny,how it was never mentioned that Russert pulled strings to earn Luke his weekend radio show on XM (satellite) radio talking about sports with James Carville.
Unless of course,you really believe that Luke "Smith" would have been given a national radio show while still in college with no radio experience and would be able to get a nationally known person to sit in and co-host..................
I don't bring this up to disparage Russert,he did what most of us would do-anything to help the people that we care about,but he was flawed.
Just like everyone else.

I grow more and more disenchanted with the news networks.
Too much celebrity,(CNN),too far on the left (MSNBC) and too far on the right (Fox).
Why cant we just talk about what happened and let us read what we think into it.
I have no problems with opinion based shows,but it seems that we are falling into the trap of biases leeching into the news portion of the programs and that is not a good sign.
I would love to see Brian Lamb and C-Span jump into this with a Joe Friday style of news-Just the facts and figures without an agenda to set.

Tim Russert was a large loss to NBC and the news industry in general,but the passing of Russert may have done something else.
He may have shown the power of celebrity outweighs the duty of informing.
Somehow,I don't think that is what Tim Russert stood for in life.

For a look at Bag of Health's take on this-click here.
Back later with the Pirates visit to Chicago and other news.

Photo Credit
Russert-NBC