Listen to me on WMAL with Paul Harris, talking about the passing of Tim Russert.
Here's my first run at an obit, which will appear in Saturday's Kansas City Star. Please use the comments to share your remembrances of Russert. It's always tragic when a dad outlives the son, and this will be a tough Father's Day for Big Russ.
Tim Russert, whose 17 years as moderator of NBC's “Meet the Press” made him arguably the most influential television journalist covering American politics, died suddenly on Friday. He was 58 and, not surprisingly, at work -- recording voiceovers for Sunday's broadcast -- when he collapsed of a heart attack.
“Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw went on the air at 2:39 p.m. Central time to break the news. He tried to keep his voice steady as he added a personal comment: “This news division will not be same without his strong, clear voice.”
Among the scores of tributes issued by politicians and media figures Friday, the one from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy spoke for many: “With a reasoned voice, a sharp mind and a fair hand, Tim took the measure of every Washington official and all those that sought to be one. He was a great journalist and an even better friend.”
Russert, a onetime aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Gov. Mario Cuomo, made the switch from politics to news in 1984. He began on the international beat for NBC, landing a prized interview with Pope John Paul II in 1985. In 1991 he became Washington bureau chief and moderator of “Meet the Press.”
At that time, the show was still half an hour long, had gone through five moderators in seven years and was trailing both David Brinkley's “This Week” ABC and CBS's “Face the Nation” in the ratings.
Russert turned the show around almost immediately by creating a signature style of interrogation virtually guaranteed to make his guests uncomfortable and mesmerize viewers. Belying his avuncular Irish Catholic style off-camera, the Russert who appeared on-camera was a difficult -- he liked to say “persistent but civil” -- interviewer. He would dredge up quotes that his subject had spoken, sometimes years earlier, put them up on the screen (or play the sound bite) and then grill his captive until he was satisfied with the response before moving on.
His style unsettled the independent presidential candidate, H. Ross Perot, in 1992. Perot stammered “May I finish?” when Russert kept prodding him about his positions. In 2003, while being questioned on “Meet the Press,” Vice President Cheney made his famous prediction that Americans would be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq. And it was while appearing on “Meet the Press” in 2005 that Aaron Broussard, the Louisiana official whose parish was flooded by Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, broke down in tears.
Very few formats in television have survived the whirlwinds of change in the past 15 years: the proliferation of cable news and talk radio, the news cycle accelerating to Internet speed, the audience's impatience fed by its appetite for fast-paced reality TV shows.
And yet, “Meet the Press” remained largely unchanged even as it continued to rule the Sunday morning interview show roost for more than a decade. Russert was ahead of the curve, and being a stickler for small details turned out to be exactly the quality that would fuel the rise of the blogosphere.
“Russert frustrates the candidates by knowing their positions on issues better than they do,” wrote Slate's Jack Shafer in an widely-discussed 2003 piece, “How to Beat Tim Russert.”
And not just national politicians were required to pass “the Tim Russert test.” Sen. Jim Talent and his then-challenger, Claire McCaskill, squared off less than a month before the 2006 midterm elections. Russert pressed Talent on his statement that “progress” was being made in the war in Iraq, while McCaskill had to answer for a quote suggesting that fighting terrorism was a criminal, rather than military, activity.
"It was one of the great pleasures of my political career that I got the chance to be challenged on Meet the Press by Tim," McCaskill said in a statement. "It is not surprising that the fairness and professionalism he brought to every interview is a common theme in all of our remembrances today."
Russert was a student of “Meet the Press,” and claimed to have watched every broadcast saved in the program's 60-year history. And he collected stories from past moderators. He told The Star last year about the time that Sen. Joe McCarthy brought a gun to the NBC studio “and had it on his thigh during the interview.” Russert, as was his wont, ended the story with a quip: “That's why they called him Tail Gunner Joe.”
Though observers would lament the obsession of TV news with “gotcha journalism,” Russert told The Star last year that he was simply returning “Meet the Press” to its roots, when it was known for more hard-nosed questioning of guests.
“It's not a matter of playing 'gotcha,'” Russert told The Star last year. “It's simply trying to help frame the debate.”
Rare among journalists, Russert was comfortable letting his personal side become public, especially after his bestselling memoir, Big Russ and Me, was published in 2004. (“Big Russ” refers to the senior Tim Russert, a sanitation worker and truck driver who raised four children in a south Buffalo, N.Y., neighborhood.) Russert would often be approached at airports by fans who said his book had changed the way they looked at their own fathers. Their testimonials would lead to a second bestselling book, Wisdom of Our Fathers.
In 1995, the National Father's Day Committee named him “Father of the Year” and in 2001 the National Fatherhood Initiative bestowed the same honor on him. More than one observer was heard on TV Friday noting the poignancy of Russert passing on Father's Day weekend.
While anchoring MSNBC's commercial-free coverage of Russert's death, its anchor Keith Olbermann referred to him “our leader,” adding that in his three decades of broadcasting, “I can't remember anyone who enjoyed what he did more than Tim Russert.” His sentiments would be echoed throughout the evening as the tightly-knit Washington press community reacted to the news of Russert's death.
Chuck Todd, NBC News's political director, whom Russert hired last year, looked stricken as referred to Russert as a “father figure.” A direct competitor, CBS's Bob Schieffer, who hosts “Face the Nation,” appeared on MSNBC and spoke warmly of Russert, whom he often saw this spring at Washington Nationals baseball games.
Though he was known for holding up a dry-erase white board on election night in 2000, Russert was a technophile who was clearly in his element with the 24/7 news cycle. His body was another matter. Russert was not exactly the picture of health, and on Friday Brokaw observed how, during the unexpectedly lengthy presidential primary season, his colleague had “worked to the point of exhaustion so many weeks.” Russert routinely appeared on all three news-oriented networks owned by NBC, ran the Washington bureau, provided analysis to MSNBC on primary and caucus nights and hosted a long-running interview show on CNBC.
NBC correspondent John Harwood related on MSNBC that earlier on Friday, he and Gerald Seib, co-authors of a new book, had taped an interview with Russert for CNBC, and afterward Seib had turned to him and said, “I don't think Tim is very well.” Russert had just returned from Italy, where he and his wife, Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth, were celebrating their son Luke's recent graduation from Boston College.
The mayor of Buffalo, N.Y., where Russert grew up, ordered the flags at municipal buildings be lowered to half-mast in honor of its native son. Besides Orth and Luke Russert, he is survived by his father.
Previously on TV Barn:
Maybe he really did do too much cocaine and that's why he's not with us anymore. Whatever the reason, I could've done without the loss of George Carlin for a while. For one thing, his last HBO special was not his best, and I was holding out hope that with a new wave of political correctness on the way, he could have had some fresh material to dig into for his 2010 special.
. You may also know it picked up some honors, one of which was being named a Kansas Notable Book for 2007 by the State Library of Kansas and the Kansas Center for the Book. Since the governor appoints the state librarian, this was praise indeed.
One of the valuable insights in the new book by Rory O'Connor and Aaron Cutler called 
is how even the most loathsome right-wing talk show host, if he or she is popular, has a peculiar genius that almost nobody else in our culture has. "Entertaining people with strong opinions about the news (without actually reporting or gathering any) sounds easy," the authors write, adding that while "anyone can do it, very few people can do it well."
