The Death of Tim Russert - Page 2

Olberman's show has really gone down the drain. He is getting like O'Reilly, as they get more popular they get more arrogant and annoying. Each day it is harder to watch political shows because of blow hards like these, which makes Tim's passing even sadder and a bigger loss.

At least it's a debate rather than just spewing your own propaganda. I'm not defending O'Reilly at all here. I'm not a fan of Billo's show, but Olbermann doesnt challenge anyone on Countdown and no one challenges him.

He has Pat Buchanan on his show once and a while, but it's always about the War where they actually agree.

I would like to see Olbermann on David Gregory's show as a panelist going one on one with Buchanan or any other Republican-Conservative pundit. Hell, how about Tucker Carlson? He had people on his show who disagreed with him at least.

Say what you will about Russert. He challenged everyone. Can't say the same for other journalists on cable news today.

I'm not suggesting that Olbermann is the Second Coming of journalism; I'm saying that it's probably hard for his producers to book any real right-wingers because they hardly ever stray out of their comfort zones. You see liberals on conservative shows FAR more often than the reverse.

Russert as a paragon of journalism?

Explains a lot.

Right, and with Russert's passing the O'Reilly's become that much more prominent!

or threatens to send network security to their house.

Interestingly, I just realized Russert moderated a debate between O'Reilly and Krugman. Might be interesting to watch. I think he moderated one for Sean Hannity (vs ???).

That's not journalism. You don't have to be "pushing an agenda" to say, "Wait a minute, you're clearly lying" to a guest. Fact checking is part of a journalist's job, and sometimes that fact checking takes the form of actively trying to get a straight answer out of someone, calling them on inconsistancies, and so on.

When the media simply passes along the words of those in power without comment, it's a tacit endorsement of those words. But there's nothing "biased" about pointing out when someone is lying, or describing the facts. Otherwise you fall into the trap of the noise machine, where something is repeated often enough (and those holding the reins of power have the ability to do so) that it becomes accepted truth. Or the idea that there are two sides to every argument, each one is equal, and you just need to pick a side and dig in.

Matt is absolutely right. It seems to me that the coverage is definitely more about what a nice guy he was and what a shock it is, but I have to agree, the guy wasn't particularly good at his job. From everything I saw with him, he was an extremely smart man and an extremely passionate one, but when it came time for the tough questions to be asked, he folded.

Yet afterwards, the person could receive credit for appearing on the show, as if they had passed through some trial by fire. A foreign journalist, BBC, CBC, what have you, would have done a more penetrating job and focused on more substantive issues, and not get played for a chump.

I love the fact that some of you seem to have become so inured to your bought and sold corporate news media that you see true investigative journaiism and actually trying to cut to the truth of an issue without fear or favour as pushing an 'agenda'

It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so utterly fucking tragic.

I guess Woodward and Bernstein were just agenda pushing agitators or something...

Watching Meet the Press now, running classic moments. No, I don't see here a "corporate puppet" not asking relevant questions. More people should actually watch the show.

I thought Russert was pretty good at his job. I've seen a few of his interviews and they weren't puff pieces. He asked tough questions. Picking on him about Iraq, which every journalist basically folded on, seems silly. No one called Bush or his administration out, and the issue wasn't as cut and dry at the time as it seems now.

This. We've lowered the bar so, so much over time. It's pretty embarrassing.

Spot on. It's also possible that a lot of younger people just don't know what an independent press is like because they haven't seen it in their lifetimes.

From Wikipedia

Journalism is a style of writing for presenting bare facts to describe news events. Journalists (also known as News analysts, reporters, and correspondents) gather information, prepare stories, and make broadcasts that inform us about local, State, national, and international events; present points of view on current issues; and report on the actions of public officials, corporate executives, interest groups, and others who exercise power.

News analysts—also called newscasters or news anchors—examine, interpret, and broadcast news received from various sources. News anchors present news stories and introduce videotaped news or live transmissions from on-the-scene reporters. News correspondents report on news occurring in the main, from their own country, and from foreign cities where they are stationed.

I highly recommend the book Feet to the Fire: Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak Out . It' s collection of interviews with prominent journalists like Ted Koppel. The editor bascially confronts all of them with the same questions that many posters on this thread bring up. You can't read this book and subscribe the simplitic "they failed at their jobs" ": they were shills" statements that keep being repeated over and over on this thread.

http://www.amazon.com/Feet-Fire-Medi...3551423&sr=1-1

Yes, actually, I can. You seem incapable of realizing that thousands upon thousands of Americans were devastated by 9/11 but were still somehow capable of the superhuman ability to actually retain their perspectives, whether or not they were professional journalists.

From the reviews:

"It becomes clear that corporate concerns do bias the news we are allowed to see. That is why a variety of viewpoints is essential. A good introduction to the practice of journalism when the country is at war."

How is allowing corporate concerns to influence the news we see not failing at your job or being a shill? Being complicit in the act is direct participation, as far as I'm concerned.

And this is from the Amazon.com review:

Borjesson, an award-winning investigative reporter turned media critic, gathers an impressive list of journalists in what purports to be "an oral account of the current era of crisis," but the author is less interested in her group's answers than whether they agree with her premises: the Bush administration is evil, the American media are largely complicit, and the American public is idiotic.


The point is, here is a "journalist' actively imposing her viewpoint on the people who participate in the events she is trying to understand! The interview with Koppel alone is worth the price of the book. He calls her out on many of the same opinions voiced in this thread.

Of course I realize that (in fact I was one of them). What you seem to be unable to do is to understand any viewpoint other than your own. Thus anyone who though the war was a good idea MUST be evil, dishonest, stupid etc.

So your interpretation of "presenting the bare facts" means they should ask a question, allow the person to lie, nod, and move on? If every journalist does that--and the vast majority of them did--isn't that going to obstruct the truth rather than present it?

For the record, I've seen almost nothing of Russert's show. I'm just arguing with Cylon's points in the abstract. Providing a forum for liars is not journalism.

Stupid, yes, absolutely. I'm a dipshit in Flowery Branch, GA., and I knew it was stupid before it ever started. Dishonest or Evil have to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. But the CHUD Politics thread is hardly the only place to question America's journalistic integrity over the last seven years.

Larisa Alexandrovna, from At Largely.com

You mean the way everyone who argued AGAINST the war was painted as evil, dishonest, or stupid by the loudest and most prominent media pundits at the time?

Sometimes an idea is just bad. Journalists, and people in general, are not required to provide "balance" for every half-baked idea that comes down the pike, particularly not when it's not bourne out by the facts. What I don't get is your argument that asking someone challenging questions is somehow biased and unfair. If the person has good arguments and facts to counter these questions, it will help their cause. Of course "gotcha" questions like the idocy Stephanopoulos flung at Hillary and Obama stack the deck against the responder, but a reasonable debate, even if the interviewer's biases are showing, can only help the person who has the facts on their side. Jon Stewart does it every time he has a war apologist on his show. Why can't the "real" journalists? Answer: because Bush and pals always knew that a reasonable debate would make their case for war fall apart, and thus the entire right-wing mediasphere promoted the idea of basic questions and fact-checking as signs of evil liberal bias. Which seems to have taken root in your head.

Woah Woah woah! First, the definition of journalism is not my opinion, it is from the Wikipedia . Second, no one is saying Journalists should not question people who are lying.

Matt Goldberg's point was that Tim Russert failed to ask enough follow-up questions. I contend that he did ask follow-up questions, and used questions to draw out information, not to confront his subjects (though his style can appear to be very confrontational). Also, he tended to focus on domestic US politics (even his interviews with foreign leaders revolved around US issues)

Meet the Press shows are archived on the web and iTunes. Why not listen to a few and draw your own conclusions?

Dictionary definitions are sort of insufficient for the argument we're having here. It's like bringing the dictionary definition of "policeman" into an argument about a cop who's accused of beating a suspect. There's more to a job than what is listed on Wikipedia. Nevertheless, it's clear that a journalist's job is to get at the truth, and that may mean asking awkward questions of powerful people.

Your argument started with defending Russert by saying that none of us would have the balls to argue with Cheney, which, as a few people then pointed out, is exactly what a journalist ought to do. Regardless of whether Russert was tough or a weenie when it came to getting the truth from his subjects, the fact remains that the media as a whole turned into a bunch of weenies and caved in to the Bush cabal in the run up to the war. Bush, Cheney, et. al. insisted that anyone who analyzed, let alone critiqued, their VERY CLEARLY FLIMSY arguments was being unAmerican, emboldening the terrorists, etc. This mindset continues up to the present, with the criticism of the Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo--the idea being that even to hold trials is somehow validating these people. It's one thing to be biased in favour of a certain result, but Bush and co. declared that even to analyze the facts was "biased". And journalists went along with them. And the US was sucked into a costly, pointless, horrific war as a result. I don't think holding the people who let this happen to account, when their job should have been to present the facts that would allow people to see what a load it was, is unfair.

As for Russert, again, not criticizing or defending him. Your points went beyond Russert, and those were what I was responding to. If Russert let people lie blatantly on important issues without challenging them, he wasn't a very good journalist. If he didn't, good for him. But you seem to be making excuses for the media's cowardice that don't wash with me.

During the Valerie Plame scandal, Russert explicitly stated that he considered conversations with sources to be "off the record" unless told otherwise, which is the exact opposite of a pretty fundamental tenet of journalism.

All of my arguements have been in relation to Tim Russert, which is the subject of this thread. You keep shading my responses to mean "you disagree with me, you support Bush, you are a Bad Person". Well, in order, yes, no and no.

As for my comment early on in this thread, it was in response to a guy who posted that he would have told Cheney he was a liar to his face on national tv. And I don't believe that.


Also, it is not like there was no debate on whether to go to war or not. Colin Powell spoke to the UN (with fales or misleading info), there was a fierce debate in Congress (with my then congressman Barbara Lee voting against), there were numerous polls etc.
Did the Media do the best job possible? No. Does Tim Russert bear the major burden in the Media laying down? No. I think he did a much better job than most of his peers in this matter. He did not cheerlead like Fox news did. He DID ask pointed questions, and he grilled Bushies in the runup to the war.

The whole subject of why we went to war with Iraq is a lot bigger and more complex than you will admit to. I'm a dumb ass living in Northern California and I knew this was a mistake. I also grew up in the South and my family still lives there. They were 110% behind the war and when I had arguements with them they told me they KNEW they were right and I was wrong. My brother told me 2 weeks ago that he meets returning vets from Iraq regularly and they sincerely believe they are making progress and helping to build a new society there. Since you live in Georgia I'm sure you know a lot of people who are not stupid who support the war as well.

EDITED TO ADD: By the way I'm not defending the Media as a whole. That is a much longer conversation

The reason I quoted that definition is I get the feeling that people on this board view Journalism as if every reporter is Woodward and Bernstein and they must question authority. In fact that kind of investigative journalism is not the norm.

My God! The Ain't Cool News thread on this actually shows some respect for the man.

http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_d...omment_2116772

I think Hell just froze over

Christopher Hitchens on Tim Russert

It’s almost unbearable to think of Tim Russert dying so soon after celebrating the graduation of his beloved son, Luke, and one’s first thought must be for the young man and for his mother, our dear colleague Maureen Orth, as well as for Tim’s all-important father and three sisters. Everything about this premature death is simply awful, with the conceivable exception of one salient detail: Tim was taken from us while working his usual arduous end-of-week stint for Meet The Press. That, one can be reasonably sure, is the way he would have wished it.

That old phrase “solid citizen” pops straight into my mind when I think of Tim. First of all, it describes his face and frame: quite the exception in a profession so devoted to lissomeness in its anchorpersons. It also helps sum him up as a family man and warm friend, who never forgot his deep roots in the Buffalo working class. More importantly, though, it describes a person who thinks it is a clear responsibility to be well informed about the affairs of the republic, and to share this information and analysis with others. The highest office in a democracy, it has been said, is that of the citizen. Very well: in that case Tim was a good one.

Not very long ago I was sitting opposite him in the studio during a break, and wanted to check some abstruse detail about the campaign. Out flashed his Blackberry and before the music came on for the next segment he had the relevant information for me and was asking someone to help print it out. I was impressed, not so much by his digital mastery, but by the amazing speed with which he could “access” anything that was germane to politics. Hard work was his secret: hard work and a certain commitment to honesty.

The broad and genial openness of his features, surmounted as they were by those perpetually-arched eyebrows, could at first give the impression of an innocent. This impression would not long survive an encounter. I remember having the extraordinary experience of finding that I was being given more time than I actually wanted, on Meet The Press during the impeachment crisis in 1999. And the questions were very searching and penetrating ones, proceeding logically from one another and from my answers, and leaving one very little room for mere rhetoric.

On the other hand, and especially with his own one-on-two interview program, The Tim Russert Show, he could be extremely generous and essentially get out of your way while eliciting your opinions. I most particularly remember him doing this for Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and myself, who had published competing books on the role of religion last year. Tim was much more than a “practicing” Catholic: he was a devout and highly serious one who attended church every day. It was very handsome of him, I thought, to offer a whole hour of more or less free publicity to one atheist and one Episcopalian. And he relished the discussion and the disagreements, on the set and off it, for their own sake.

The journalistic profession sometimes makes itself look slightly absurd when one of its “stars” dies, printing and screening slightly too many tributes and making it seem as if an irreparable gap has been left. But in more than a quarter-century in Washington I haven’t seen or felt anything to equal the shocked sense of loss that’s been inflicted by the death of Timothy John Russert Jr. Professional respect of this kind has to be earned, and earn it he did. Affection of this quality has to be earned as well, and he managed that by his infectious humor and by an unmatched reputation for small kindnesses and courtesies. Tim had a really big heart, though it now hurts to say that.

I see what they did there.

...Who? Me? When did I say that? I think you're letting the media off the hook way, way too easily. That's all. You seem willing to accept a very low standard of journalism and speaking truth to power.

Here's what Matt said:

That seems like a pretty fair criticism. Somehow you--and it was you who framed it this way, not Matt--turned this into "are you saying he should have SCREAMED IN CHENEY'S FACE THAT HE WAS A LIAR?!?" Considering this and your summary of the Iraq war, you seem to have a really dodgy memory.

And in my opinion Tim Russert was NOT a prime example of problems with the Media. And if you read the other posts after Matt's, you'd have read several Chudster saying that yes, they would have called out Cheney in the way I satirize.

We'll save the debate on the Iraq war for another day, because we have the same opinion of each other....

Jesus, one thing Im beginning to realise from this thread and the prtesidential one is, I do see the corporate media re-finding their balls just in time for a Democrat to enter the white house, the media apologists all turn around and say "are you happy now?" and we all go on pretending the news media isn't bought and sold to right wing free-marketeers.

But then its Monday morning and Im in a snit....

Can I ask who you do think were the worst offenders then Cylon?

Did Russert have to be one of those worst offenders when he was still part of a larger media machine people are taking issue with and one that is now eulogising Russert as some kind of investigative rebel (which is just patently untrue)?

Sure: FOX news ( in general), the "commentators" like Rush Limbaugh, O'Rielly, Coulter etc (and sadly, more people get their news from these sources than anywhere else), and the news anchors for all three networks.


So, because these people are eulogising him, that means he must have sucked? The coverage I've seen of him is of someone who was "tough but fair", not a "Rebel"

I've seen a good chunk of the tributes for the past few days (specially today, the one for Meet the Press was very well done) and nobody is saying he was the paragon of "investigative journalism". That's not what he did, and he never claimed that.

The only people who have claimed that or even compared him to it (by comparing him to woodward and bernstein are found in this thread alone). He was a great interviewer, moderator and general political analyst/commentator (of the non-partisan kind). So great that you think he wasn't good at his job, but at least try to criticize him for what his actual role was, not the one you made up in your mind.

This thread is the very definition of lame.

I guess when someone claims to be a journalist El Capitan, some of us have different interpretations of what that means. To me journalism is journalism. A journalists 'role' is to seek the truth above all else without fear or favour.

If you claim to be one then in my mind certain things should be expected of you - you can call yourself a pundit, an interviewer, an analyst, a moderator or whatever, but you don't get to the position Russert was in without starting off in the world of journalism and thus, being a journalist.

If "that sort" of journalism wasn't Russerts job El - then who's job is it exactly?

...and why exactly is this thread lame?

1) Journalism is a job/profession in the real world, it's not the Green Lantern Corps

2) Russert was a "Managing Editor" (Really a host and Interviewer) for NBC's Meet the Press

3) I had no idea the weight of Truth, Justice and the American Way all fell on one man's shoulders. Who will Tell Us the Truth Now?! (And that was never the Green Lantern Corp's gig anyway.)

4) Apparently if you are a journalist at one point in your life you hold a sacred responsibility to voice Truth to Power (as Rain Dog sees it) for teh rest of your life.

5) This thread is lame because you people could not wait even a few hours to bash a dead man who actually contributed to the public discourse of this country. And you do so by creating definitions of professions, imposing them retroactively on him then bashing him for failing to meet your standards.

I’ll leave this thread to you Internet Fanboys. Please continue to fantasize about what you’d have done if you hosted a nationally broadcast show and had Dick Cheney on as a guest in 2003.

Right, we didn't account for potential concern trolling. Sorry for the attempt at a possibly interesting discussion. Back to the Ugly Actress and Fast Food Hoedown threads, folks!

Jesus Cylon, no ones bashing anyone - the eulogising of Russert has simply become a jump-off point for a discussion of mainstream corporate news media and its standing in America today.

...and I ask you what asked El Capitan - if it WASN'T Russerts job to hold the powers that be accountable considering the position he held, then who's job was and is it exactly?!?!

Russert's complicity in the selling of the Iraq War is no different than any of the other mainstream journalists. The whole lot of 'em got it wrong, which is why you have Judy Miller/Tom Friedman type shit happen. So he's only as bad as the rest of them. The difference is that he hosted MTP (can't say Meet The Russert no mo') and was clearly in a position to make a difference if he had done a better job.

The thing is, the whole mainstream press still has something of a pair of blinders on for not recognizing the level of manipulation. I've heard it on TV, where some of the pundits gets oddly defensive about it. (Not on Bill Maher though.) Even today, there are stories of the McCain campaign feeding journalists precise ways of describing things that presumably would work to their advantage. And some of them are actually complying. I think that's why, if nothing else, the Scott McClellan book has some resonance today. This broken system is what he is trying to expose.

It's also true that Russert seemed to be tougher at times, with Democrats than Republicans. A curious thing, where you have a liberal (which Russert is) being tougher on one of his own, as compared to his natural opponent. I'm not sure there's one thing in particular going on there, but it might be especially fascinating to those whose job it is to not repeat those mistakes.

So as much as Tim Russert will be missed for his aw-shucks beltway insider journalism, he was the old school. I'll be curious to see who NBC picks to replace him. Out of all the major networks not counting PBS, they are the most reliable, so the bar is set fairly high. My guess is David Gregory will be the fill-in.

On side note, my internet's working!

Lame? If you're going to quote, at least quote correctly, for crying out loud.

Read some more of the actual articles and tributes. Of Russert, Obama said "There wasn't a better interviewer on television". McCain called Russert "the preeminent political journalist of his generation."

Was he a good man, a decent man? Apparently. I hope the Bills stay in Buffalo forever. But as newsmen go, the fact that Cheney described his work as substantive speaks for itself.

If Russert was a true journalist in some peoples minds then what exactly was Murrow - just a relic of a different time?

This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.

We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion — a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply.

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

What a filthy, biased, agititaing agenda-pusher he was...

Yeah, but look what happened to Murrow. That's one of the points of "Good Night and Good Luck." And when thinking about this whole "corporate media" issue (to which I ask, um, when has the American media ever not been controlled by corporations with interests outside of telling the truth?), I think a Murrow, quoting Shakespeare, thought is more appropriate:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but ourselves."

"It bleeds, it leads" journalism has been the norm for longer than I think any of us would care to admit, longer than any of us has been alive, really. And you can bitch all you want about the lack of Woodwards and Bernsteins, but the fact is that Abu Ghirab, Walter Reed, Plame, Blackwater, and this thing with the Pentagon Correspondents were all broken by the press. The question then becomes -- and this is where Russert failed, although he certainly wasn't conductor of the failroad -- why is nobody talking about it and why is nothing being done? That's why that article YT posted about Pentagon Contractors was so frightening.

(David Gregory, I think, would be great as a replacement for Russert, and might actually ask those tough questions we're all clamoring for.)

Thanks Rath, that was a good post. The issue of the Media is much much bigger than one man. I feel too much blame is being assigned to a guy who did a good job and is not given credit (at least on this board).

EDITED to add: It's frsustrating to argue with people who clearly have not seen or listeined to Russert at work. (Not saying you are one of them Rath). I've heard him ask about Gitmo, 911 etc. Hell, the clip El Capitan lined to, with Cheney, Russert asks and followed up on

Watch THIS clip and tell me Russert rolled over for Cheney...

Just because there aren't emails going out to stockholders regarding the best way to maximize war profiteering doesn't mean there's not an inherent conflict of interest involved with any company that's selling implements of war to the Pentagon on one hand, and claiming to be a reputable source of news regarding war on the other. A conflict of interests doesn't automatically mean that wrongdoing has occurred, but it's still not anything that ought to be trusted or encouraged. Perhaps NBC News and, say, GE Missile Parts Incorporated are relatively well insulated from one another now. What guarantees do we have that this will continue to be the case? This situation can only end badly, it's just a question of when it will end badly.