Tim Russert, NBC News "Meet the Press" moderator dies at age 58

Posted 15th June 2008 at 09:07 PM by Diabolo_7

wikipedia
Timothy John "Tim" Russert (May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008) was an American television journalist and lawyer, best known for appearing for over 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He was NBC News' Washington Bureau Chief and also hosted the self-titled CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview program Tim Russert. He was a frequent correspondent and guest on NBC's The Today Show and Hardball. Russert was noted for his coverage of presidential elections until his death and for his presentation of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey on the NBC Nightly News during the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Russert collapsed of a heart attack in NBC's Washington, D.C. studios on Friday, June 13, 2008, while taping voiceovers for Meet the Press, and was pronounced dead a short time later at Sibley Memorial Hospital.[1] He suffered from heart disease and diabetes.

Early life

Russert was born in Buffalo, New York to Irish American Catholic parents Elizabeth, a homemaker, and Timothy Joseph Russert, a sanitation worker and newspaper truck driver.[2] [3] He received a Jesuit education.[4] from Canisius High School in Buffalo. He received his B.A. from John Carroll University and his Juris Doctor from Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Russert commented on Meet the Press that he went to Woodstock, "in a Buffalo Bills jersey with a case of beer." Russert was admitted to the bar in New York and the District of Columbia. While in law school, an official from his alma mater, John Carroll University, called Russert to ask if he could book some concerts for the school as he had done while a student. He agreed, but said he would need money because he was running out of money to pay for law school. One concert that Russert booked was headlined by a then-unknown singer, Bruce Springsteen, who charged $2,500 for the concert appearance. Russert told this story to Jay Leno when he was a guest on the The Tonight Show on NBC on June 6, 2006.[5] On September 28, 2007, Springsteen and the E Street Band played live on the Today show in Rockefeller Plaza, and Russert could be seen listening to the music in casual dress toward the front of the stage.
Russert with his trademark white marker board during the 2000 presidential election
Russert with his trademark white marker board during the 2000 presidential election

Career

Russert graduated with honors from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law [2] and then worked on New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan's successful senatorial campaign in 1976. He served as Moynihan's chief of staff to from 1977 to 1982. He then worked on New York Democrat Mario Cuomo's successful gubernatorial campaign in 1982, and was counselor in the governor's office in Albany from 1983 to 1984. He left politics and joined the NBC Washington Bureau in 1984. In 1985 he arranged for Pope John Paul II's first interview on American television.[1] He became Washington Bureau Chief in 1988 and was later promoted to the position of senior vice president of NBC News.[6]

Russert took over the Sunday morning program Meet the Press in 1991, and would become the longest serving host of the program. Its name was changed to Meet the Press with Tim Russert, and, at his suggestion, went to an hour-long format in 1992. Russert was known especially for his extensive research in preparation for interviews. One approach he developed was to find old quotes or video clips that were inconsistent with guests' more recent statements, present them on-air to his guests and then ask them to clarify their positions. Russert often moderated political campaign debates as well.

During NBC's coverage of the 2000 presidential election, Russert calculated possible United States Electoral College outcomes on a marker board on the air and memorably summed up the outcome as dependent upon "Florida, Florida, Florida."[7] Russert again accurately predicted the final battleground of the presidential elections of 2004: "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio." On the MSNBC show Tucker, Russert predicted the battleground states of the 2008 presidential election would be New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, saying, "If Democrats can win three of those four, they can lose Ohio and Florida, and win the presidency."[8]

An avid fan of the Buffalo Bills football team, Russert usually closed Sunday broadcasts during the football season with some type of pro-Bills comment. The team released a statement that listening to Russert's "Go Bills" exhortations was part of their Sunday morning game preparation.[9]. He had also ended his show by mentioning the successes of Boston College football, baseball, and hockey.

During his career, Russert received 48 honorary doctorates and won several awards for excellence in journalism including the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the John Peter Zenger Freedom of the Press Award, the American Legion Journalism Award, the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Journalism Award, the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication and the Catholic Academy for Communication's Gabriel Award.[1] Russert also received an Emmy Award in 2005 for his coverage of the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan.[10]

CIA leak scandal

In the Plame affair, Scooter Libby, convicted chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Russert was the first to tell him of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame (Mrs. Joseph C. Wilson). Russert testified previously, and again in United States v. I. Lewis Libby, that he would neither testify whether he spoke with Libby nor would he describe the conversation.[11][12] Russert did say, however, that Plame's identity as a CIA operative was not leaked to him.[11]

Russert testified again in the trial on February 7, 2007.[13] At the trial, the prosecution asserted that a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent had called Russert regarding Russert's phone call with Libby, and that Russert had told the agent that the subject of Plame had not come up during his conversation with Libby.[13]

During the trial, another witness, former Cheney communications director Cathie Martin, testified that she "suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format", allowing the administration to "control the message".[14][15]

Personal life

Russert met Maureen Orth at the 1976 Democratic National Convention; they married in 1983. Orth has been a special correspondent for Vanity Fair since 1993. Their son, Luke, named after St. Luke, according to NBC News,[citation needed] graduated from Boston College in 2008 and hosts the XM radio show 60/20 Sports with James Carville.

Russert penned a bestselling autobiography, Big Russ and Me[16] , in 2004 , which chronicled his life growing up in a predominantly Irish working-class neighborhood in South Buffalo and his education at Canisius High School. Russert's father, a World War II veteran who held down two jobs after the war, emphasized the importance of maintaining strong family values through the methods of the "carrot and the stick", the reverence of faith, and of never taking a short cut to reach a goal. Russert claimed to have received over 60,000 letters from people in response to the book, detailing their own experiences with their fathers.[8][17] He released Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons in 2005, a collection of some of these letters, which also became a bestseller.

He appeared briefly in a scene on the television drama Homicide as himself.[18] On that show, one of the fictional characters, Megan Russert, was supposedly his cousin. Russert also appeared on the Nickelodeon game show What Would You Do?

Russert grew up as a New York Yankees fan, switching his allegiance to the Nationals when they were established in Washington, DC. He was a Nationals and Washington Wizards season ticket holder.[19] He was elected to the board of directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 2003.[20]

He and his family lived in northwest Washington, D.C.[2] and also spent time at a vacation home on Nantucket island, where he served on the board of several non-profit organizations. As of 2008, his 6,220-square-foot (578 m²) Nantucket home was valued at $7.2 million.[21]

Russert, a devout and faithful Catholic, admitted many times to having made a promise to God to never miss Sunday Mass if his son were born healthy. In his writing and in his news reporting, Russert spoke openly and fondly of his Catholic school education and of the role of the Catholic Church in his life. He was an outspoken supporter of Catholic education on all levels. [22] He said that his father, a sanitation worker who never finished high school, "worked two jobs all his life so his four kids could go to Catholic school, and those schools changed my life." He also spoke warmly of Catholic nuns who taught him. "Sister Mary Lucille founded a school newspaper and appointed me editor and changed my life," he said. Teachers in Catholic schools "taught me to read and write, but also how to tell right from wrong."[22]

Russert also contributed his time and to numerous Catholic charities. He was particularly devoted and concerned for the welfare of street kids in the United States and children whose lives were lost in gun violence.[22] He told church workers attending the 2005 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering that "if there's an issue that Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and liberals can agree on, it's our kids."[22]

Before returning to the United States from his trip to Italy just before his death he had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. He had been scheduled to give the Catholic Common Ground Initiative's Philip J. Murnion Lecture June 27 at The Catholic University of America.

Death

Shortly after 1:30p.m. EDT of June 13, 2008, Russert collapsed at the offices of WRC-TV, which houses the Washington, D.C. bureau of NBC News where he was the Bureau Chief, while recording voiceovers for the Sunday edition of Meet the Press. The District of Columbia Fire and Rescue service received a call from NBC at 1:40p.m. EDT and dispatched an EMS unit which arrived at 1:44p.m. EDT. Paramedics on scene attempted to defibrillate Russert's heart three times, but he did not respond. Russert was then transported to Sibley Memorial Hospital, arriving at 2:23p.m. EDT, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.[23]

In accordance with American journalistic tradition, the public announcement of Russert's death was withheld by both the wire services and his network's competitors.[24] After Russert's family had been notified, retired NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw delivered, live on NBC, CNBC and MSNBC, the news of his passing.[25] Russert had just returned from a family vacation in Italy, where he went to celebrate his son's graduation from Boston College.[26] While his wife and son remained in Italy, Russert returned to prepare for his Sunday television show.[27]

Russert's long time friend and physician, Dr. Michael Newman, said that he had asymptomatic coronary artery disease that was controlled with medication and exercise and that he had performed well on a stress test in late April. An autopsy performed on the day of his death determined that his history of coronary artery disease led to sudden cardiac death with the immediate cause being an occlusive coronary thrombus in the left anterior descending artery, resulting from a ruptured cholesterol plaque.[28][1]

Tributes

On the evening of his death, the entire, nearly commercial-free half hour of NBC Nightly News was dedicated to Russert's memory, featuring previous news segments with Russert and interviews with some of Russert's colleagues. The broadcast also included tributes to Russert by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, as well as Keith Olbermann, Ethel Kennedy, Bob Schieffer, Tom Brokaw, Bob Woodward and others. Dateline NBC also served as a memorial for Russert, by highlighting the heights of both his early life and political and journalistic career in television. No other news was covered in the broadcast. Other major public and cable news agencies, including CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox News also devoted large segments of their programming on June 13 to Russert's life and memory. Even the BBC covered his death. MSNBC, the cable network operated by NBC which he had spent much time working at, devoted several continuous hours of commercial-free interviews with Russert's colleagues, during which host Keith Olbermann and other NBC commentators teared up several times. Their weekend coverage was also devoted exclusively to interviews and analysis about Russert and his impact.

Journalists from multiple news organizations praised Russert's commitment to the highest standards of well-researched journalism and fair play. CBS News anchor emeritus Walter Cronkite wrote: "Tim Russert was a giant in our field — a standard-bearer of journalistic integrity and ethics. His masterful interviews and round-table discussions are legendary."[29]

Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein wrote: "Tim Russert was a transformative journalist. He changed American television news, by bringing to it his own values: integrity, fairness, good humor, humility, and a unique sense of how reporting, history, and politics are bound together. He was masterful at exposing hypocrisy. I knew him as a source, a colleague, a competitor, and — on the air — as the subject of his tough questions. His approach to every role was always the same: he loved what he did, and sought a way to the truth, often unconventionally."[29]

Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn discussed on NBC Nightly News how warm and religious Russert was. She said he was kind to her son Quinn and even inadvertently referred to Tim Russert twice as Quinn.[30] Gwen Ifill reported Russert's death and acknowledged Russert's impact on the world of television journalism on her PBS show Washington Week broadcast of June 13, 2008, saying she considered Russert a friend, described how he brought her into the world of broadcasting on a dare, and lamented his loss.[31]

Politicians who had faced him in presidential debates and on Meet the Press also commented on his death. President George W. Bush praised him as "a tough and hardworking newsman. He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews. And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it."[32] Former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton released a joint statement saying: "Tim had a love of public service and a dedication to journalism that rightfully earned him the respect and admiration of not only his colleagues but also those of us who had the privilege to go toe to toe with him."[2]

Sen. John McCain said: "Tim Russert was at the top of his profession. He was a man of honesty and integrity. He was hard, but he was always fair."[33] Sen. Barack Obama said: "I've known Tim Russert since I first spoke to the convention in 2004. He was somebody who over time I came to consider not only a journalist but a friend. There wasn't a better interviewer in television nor a more thoughtful analyst of our politics, and he was also one of the finest men I knew."[33]

Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, a friend of the late journalist, posted a statement on his website, writing, in part, "It's just a shame. Tim was a regular guy with [a] perpetual smile he wore naturally all the time....Tim was always the same with me: genuine."[34]

On Sunday, June 15, the first Meet the Press airing after Russert's death, was devoted entirely to a remembrance of Russert. With the moderator's chair empty, Tom Brokaw led a discussion among Russert's colleagues, including James Carville, Mary Matalin, Gwen Ifill, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mike Barnicle, and Maria Shriver. Clips from Russert's years as host of Meet the Press were included throughout the broadcast.[35]

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Your Angry Arab friend thinks otherwise:

Quote:

Tim Russert. I met him when I was a graduate student and was doing free-lance work for NBC-News in Lebanon. He was the rising star in the network then. I did not know him at all but he represents something not necessarily good or impressive about U.S. media. He was talented and was a good interrogator and was very well-prepared: but these are basic qualities that all journalists should possess; and journalists in Europe, for example, possess those qualities. But he also represented this tendency that you have be chummy with politicians, and that it is all a big joke--the political differences and the disagreements. Russert has a horrible record on the Bush administration: he was least critical and least skeptical. How can you take his coverage seriously, when he would interview the president one day, and then take his son to take his picture in the Oval Office the next day? He really did that: or when he marvels about how "a kid from Buffalo" is sitting in the Oval Office. What is the big deal, I don't get it. He represents that annoying tendency in the U.S. to indulge in self-praise and self-congratulations. He is one of those who have to say "only in America" several times a day. He also represented patriotic journalism --according to which you should not question an administration in a time of war. He also has this nostalgic view of parents and grandparents: the glorification of the past, with little regard for the plight of women, minorities, homosexuals in this past. The "greatest generation" that Brokaw wrote so much about was a generation that practiced segregation, that confined women to their homes, that watched lynching of blacks, that blatantly beat homosexuals, that spoke about "the others" only in vulgar and pejorative terms. Yesterday, Chris Mathews outed him on MSNBC: he said that Russert was a supporter of the American invasion of Iraq. No kidding. It was quite obvious. Russert started his career by working for one of the worst (and most politically racialist) Senators: Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It is also that common revolving door policy: to have journalists moving from the corridors of power to the newsrooms. Russert worked for Mynihan and for Mario Cuomo before coming to NBC-News. On Israel, Russert was horrible: he would always challenge politicians if they have the slightest skepticism toward Israel and its crimes. The standards of political courage are so different in the U.S. from what they are in Europe, for example. Here, if they ask one mild question (the standard for questioning being Larry King), it is considered courageous. Look back at Russert's interviews with Rumsfeld and Bush after Sep. 11: they did not show hints of skepticism. He was a war promoter.
Posted by As'ad at 8:16 AM

Posted 15th June 2008 at 09:15 PM by Motorcity Motorcity is online now

	Well the angry arab's standards are nothing to be proud of! Unless you are Palestinian, or a staunch defendant of the Palestinian cause, then he is not happy with them.
	Posted 16th June 2008 at 08:18 PM by Diabolo_7

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