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Tim Russert Was No Walter Cronkite

June 16th, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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Tim Russert at a basketball game with James Carville

I am not a contrarian by nature and feel bad when I hurt people’s feelings, and I have held off writing about NBC News’s Tim Russert, who passed away on Friday of a heart attack at age 58, because of the strange double standard we have about speaking ill of the famous dead.

But a hopefully respectful amount of time has passed, as well as Father’s Day, so here goes:

I felt embarrassed watching the orgy of self-important coverage about Russert on the networks and cable news shows. You would have thought that someone really big like the Pope had died. This is because at heart I remain an old-school journalist who believes that becoming part of a story – which Russert did with proud regularity – is a cardinal sin and that the death, marriage or the winning of an award by one of our own should be duly and briefly noted, but then it is time to get back to work.

The “Meet the Press” host was by all accounts a loving husband, father and son who went about his business joyously, but I am at a loss to understand why that made him so special.

Russert was praised for asking tough questions in a business where everyone should ask tough questions, and if they can’t need to find another line of work. Like becoming a White House press secretary.

Russert was praised for his integrity, but I fail to see what was so principled about his obsession with playing the “Gotcha” game and needling his guests to respond to the latest media feeding frenzy over some non-issue.

Russert was praised for his modesty, but what I saw was an outsized sense of his $5 million per year self worth that is typical in the business, while it was noted amidst all of the clubbish praise that he was jealously protective of the “Tim Russert brand” and careful not to overexpose himself.

Russert was praised for his love of politics, but that deep affection pretty much blinded him to the Inside the Beltway rot that certainly did not begin with the Age of Bush but has taken on a toxicity that has driven many Americans to drop out when it comes to their citizenly obligations.

Calling Tim Russert one of the pre-eminent journalists of his generation – and execrably comparing him to Walter Cronkite, which some of his colleagues did — is damning him and the industry with faint praise. Besides which, Russert wasn’t even a journalist in the traditional sense. He was an interviewer with a research staff.

The big and not least bit surprising message that I took away from the non-stop coverage on Friday night is that the journos praising Russert as well as the dear departed himself considered themselves to be insiders and integral to the process of politics and government. It should come as no surprise that I would put it slightly differently: Members of the Washington press corps are pretty much bought, as the harsh reactions to Scott McClellan’s observations about it in his blockbuster best seller showed.

Don’t misunderstand me. Tim Russert was very good at what he did, and I acknowledge that a cynicism born of personal experience colors my views of the passing of this leading news media celebrity. But Russert was a bigger part of the problem than the solution, and if he was an exemplar of the best the news business has to offer then it indeed has fallen far.

Photograph by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images



This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 3:34 am and is filed under Tim Russert, NBC, Journalism, Celebrities, Media, Media Criticism. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 22 Comments

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    I think you've hit it pretty much onthe head. My head started doing double takes when I heard about flags at half mast.

    A good guy sure .. and did get into some tough questions. But as you say, there used to be a standard that exveryone was expected to do that or else they couldnt be journalists and now it's just a community love in.
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    It appears Shaun Mullen is a contrarian after all! He states: "hopefully a respectable amount of time has passed"; since when is less than 72 hours a respectable amount of time to disparage a person's contribution. He has not even been laid to rest and Mr. Mullen has seen fit to substantially mock most of the accolades given to a man of integrity. Unfortunately all of the qualities regarding Mr. Russert (mentioned above by Mr. Mullen) should be expected from our journalists. However many current journalists, interviewers, media personnel, etc., do not adhere to his work ethic nor to his sense of responsibility and there "lies the rub". Maybe putting the spotlight, on the importance of these qualities, will foster a greater emphasis on them.

    It appears that Mr. Mullen is capitalizing on this newsworthy information to get his "moment in the sun". Try to get a life, Mr. Mullen. A life that does not need to belittle another's efforts in order to elevate your own. Maybe then you can hold a forum and people might even listen.
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    KathyB:

    Just asking: By your holier-than-me calculus, what time period (be specific in days, hours and minutes) should transpire after Ted Kennedy dies before it become appropriate to mention his womanizing, addictions and that mishap with a certain young woman on a bridge?
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    I completely agree that Russert was part of the problem.

    He was the main exemplar of the ridiculous game of gotcha that fills our political journalism. I suppose it made for good television.

    It is a shame that he died at a relatively young age. May he rest in peace.
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    How many of you have forgotten what was said-under oath-during the Libby trial? Remember this, whenever we wanted to get the official line out, we put Cheney on MTP. Russart was very reliable in pushing the administration line. He was, besides being the man of "gotcha" questions, not able to go off script. He never asked a followup when one of his victims said anything newsworthy. I thought that he was just another rich member of the village who summered on Marthas Vineyard with the other rich and politically powerful. I thought that he was not a journalist, but just an interviewer who had a not very good research staff. To speak ill of the dead, he was a typical inside the beltway, ignorant, selfimportant blowhard.
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    Russert was a classy representative of a very dispicable lot.

    The embarassing thing is when he'd dust off a "Meet the Press" minute from the past. You'd get to see Martin Luther King or even Robert Frost. I remember Alexander Solsenitsyn about the time of his exile. Malcom X was on I believe. George Meany of AFL-CIO was a frequent guest.

    But under Russert virtually everyone was a politician, a party hack, or a pundit. And the topics were not guided by policy, much less a discussion of ideas or collective morality. Everything was the electoral math, the latest poll numbers, and the donation totals. And when that was out of season, it was always, "who's up? who's down"

    Finally as to that vaunted "tought interview technique." That didn't apply to everyone! Incumbents generally got it easier than challengers and insiders got it easier than outsiders.

    At MTB this week Tom Brokaw held forth with Tim nearest and dearest to say farewell. And who were they. The show producer, Ms. Fischer, understandbly. Gwen Ifill of "Washington Week in Review" on PBS, who last year called Tim on his frequent guest spots on Don Imus show. Doris Kearns Goodwin, pop historian and plagiarist. Mike Barnacle, fellow Irish Catholic and another plagiarist. Power couple Mary Matalin and James Carville (AKA Skeletor) and by satelitte Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger in all her color coordinated glory.

    It was like a cross section of everything wrong with broadcast journalism.
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    Shaun, I'm relatively new to this blog, and I've become a big fan of the content regularly posted. But this exposition seems to me a fairly desperate plea for attention. I've got to agree with KathyB. Forcing oneself to "hold off" for an acceptable amount of time before lashing out at a dead man does not make you a contrarian. It makes you small.
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    kevn:

    Perhaps you'd care to answer my question to KathyB posted above.
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    Glad I waited a while to re-read, digest this and let others respond first. A few comments on both the article and the comments:

    First, I will agree that there was at least some element of the "gotcha" questions on non-issue tabloid stuff, at least in the later years. That's sad, but also endemic of the media. Once such stories break out of the blogs and e-mails and onto the small screen, it seems like everyone feels they have to grab a piece. Perhaps Russert did feel himself as "part of the political process" with his mighty soapbox, but in the end he really was. The media *is* part of the political process, and thank heavens or most of us would never know the names on the ballots before we showed up on voting day.

    Self involved or self-important? Perhaps, though I didn't really pick up on it, and surely not much more so than his competitors.

    As to the "waiting a respectful time" part, I fear I might have to take the side of one of the commentors there. I don't know the precise length in days, hours and minutes that constitutes the minimum, but before the coffin is in the ground might be pushing up against it. ;-)

    One of the superior things about Russert, as I see it, is being demonstrated already in this comments section. He is described as a reliable flack for getting the GOP and/or Bush administration message out there. In right wing sources, I'm already seeing the usual banter about how he was a flack for the Democratic party and held "love festivals" for Obama. This is about the highest praise you can get from the blogosphere... when they are both bitching about you, you must have been doing something right.

    Russert didn't *badger* and go on the attack, even in flagrant cases where I'm sure many of us wish he would have. But he did ask follow-up questions where he felt appropriate and replayed answers given on subsequent appearances to challenge them in light of more recent events and evidence. Mainly, he asked questions and gave the subject the time and space to provide answers, allowing the viewer to judge how good those answers were, in my opinion.

    And last, is an "interviewer' a journalist or not? That's one charge where I'm really confused by the point Shaun is making. Surely "journalism" when covering politics includes asking questions and getting answers on subjects which candidates might not wish to discuss if left only to spouting their own talking points and stump speeches. The only difference here is whether or not you're employing the old fashioned shoe leather to go out and get the interviews or having the subjects come to you when you have a big platform. Sunday morning interview shows seem to fill the bill on that score as I see it.

    Anyway, I'm not denying Shaun's right to critique Russert as he sees fit. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Not precisely the picture I got of Tim, though. Far from perfect and, I agree, no Walter Cronkite, but not one of the worst either. Pretty good, in fact.