Tim Russert Embodied Fairness

Friday afternoon, the Washington media got set on its ear with the sudden and untimely death of NBC newsman Tim Russert. At the age of 58, he collapsed and died from heart failure. It seems counterintuitive. According to his fans and colleagues, his heart never failed. Nor did his sense of fairness in American journalism, a rare commodity.

Mr. Russert was not a trained journalist the way his competitors were. He came out of politics, working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (perhaps the best leader ever to come from New York) and Governor Mario Cuomo (a reasonably close second). Having been on the other side of the mike gave him insights that a j-school reporter would never have, and therefore, he got better results.

The eulogies and fond memories shared over the week-end by the prima donnas in the DC media showed two things about Mr. Russert that made him what he was. First, he always did his homework. He died researching yesterday’s installment of “Meet the Press.” His enthusiasm for digging into video archives, reviewing campaign literature, and all the other tedious work of developing background for an interview was unparalleled. In too much of American journalism, there is no preparation. The reporter becomes a stenographer, and the Republic is weaker for it.

The other thing that stood out about Mr. Russert’s interviews was an unwillingness to twist the knife in the event he stuck it in. That isn’t to say that his interviews were soft and his questions easy. Instead, he retained the civility in political discourse that has all but died in the last couple of decades. He never forgot that the interviewee was a flawed human being just like himself. His attacks were always on policy points and never ad hominem.

Next Sunday, “Meet the Press” will air -- it is the longest running show on US TV. It preceded Mr. Russert as an American political institution, and it will continue as such now that he’s gone. On Friday, though, an era in US political reporting ended. Mr. Russert had at least another decade of reporting in him, and that loss will be felt for many years.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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