TV Journalist Tim Russert Dies At 58

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
June 14, 2008
Pg. 12
By Rebecca Dana and Susan Davis
Tim Russert, dean of Beltway political journalists and the hard-charging anchor of NBC's Sunday morning interview show "Meet the Press," died Friday of a heart attack at the NBC bureau in Washington. He was 58 years old.
Mr. Russert had been a fixture in Washington for a quarter-century. Through books, commentary and his two, hour-long television news shows, he established himself as one of the toughest questioners in journalism and an outsize personality in political circles.
Early Friday, Mr. Russert was back in Washington after a trip to Rome with his wife, Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth, to visit their college-age son, Luke. While abroad, Mr. Russert had visited the Vatican to see about arranging an interview with Pope Benedict. He was in the newsroom before 9 a.m. to tape an interview with John Harwood, of CNBC and the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Gerald Seib. He was weary but enthusiastic, talking about the presidential election and snapping photos with interns. Several hours later, he collapsed in the newsroom.
"He looked a little tired, but I just assumed it was jet lag," said Mr. Seib. "We chatted about the trip. He said how much fun it was to see his son, how he didn't get very far with the Vatican.
"He said he'd gotten two hours of sleep and that would be enough for him to make it till 10 o'clock tonight and he'd be OK." We taped the interview, and it lasted an hour. He seemed maybe a little more reserved than usual, but we still had great conversations, just a really intelligent, smooth conversation, substantive but interesting. We felt really good about it."
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. Russert was a lawyer by training and had a brief but accomplished career in politics, including stints as aides to New York Governor Mario Cuomo and New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He joined NBC News's Washington bureau in 1984, graduated to bureau chief four years later and remained there for the rest of his career. Mr. Russert took over "Meet the Press" in 1991. He also served as a roving political commentator and hosted an hour-long talk show for the cable news channel CNBC.
"Meet the Press" beats its Sunday morning rivals on CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox in the ratings. In this peak political season, it often draws four million viewers. This is little more than half what NBC and ABC's weekday news programs garner, but the power of the position still established Mr. Russert as perhaps the most influential journalist inside the Beltway. Politicians queued up to get airtime with him, and he earned a reputation as one who could translate complicated issues for a mass audience, exemplified by his use of a simple white-board to explain the convoluted and fast-changing details of the contested 2000 presidential election. The show also was profitable.
Mr. Russert was more than an interviewer: He became a celebrity, and his story became familiar to millions because he talked and wrote about it. Amid the trappings of Washington glitz and power, he preferred to be thought of as a blue-collar Roman Catholic kid from Buffalo who worked his way up and lived by simple, traditional values. He revered his father, "Big Russ," a World War II veteran who is still alive, and cherished the Buffalo Bills football team.
Mr. Russert was popular among booksellers, where his two books, "Big Russ & Me" and the follow-up, "Wisdom of Our Fathers," were national best sellers. "The first book in particular captured the imagination of people who responded to his tale of how his father made him the person he became," said Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest bookstore chain. "Sunday mornings aren't going to be the same without him." Mr. Riggio said the two became close friends and talked almost every week.
Kathy Schneider, a veteran book-publishing figure who worked with Mr. Russert on "Big Russ & Me," said Mr. Russert was a gifted speaker and promoter, qualities that led to bookstores large and small ordering significant quantities before publication. "I spent a day in Buffalo with him, and we had hundreds of people, including WWII veterans in wheelchairs, waiting to get in with him," she said. That Mr. Russert was subsequently a guest on so many TV shows also helped to sell the book, she added. Ms. Schneider is associate publisher at News Corp.'s Harper imprint. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.
A powerhouse in Washington political circles, Mr. Russert built a reputation as one of the toughest questioners in the press corps and one of the most influential newsmen in political journalism.
All of the major presidential candidates appeared on "Meet the Press" during the primary season. Mr. Russert moderated five of the 2008 presidential-primary debates, including one of the more memorable forums with Democratic candidates on Oct. 30, 2007, in Philadelphia. Mr. Russert pressed Sen. Hillary Clinton on whether she supported then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in the state.
In a well-chronicled moment, Sen. Clinton flubbed the answer, appearing to come down on both sides of the issue, and opened herself up to attack from her opponents. "Well, I was confused on Senator Clinton's answer. I can't tell whether she was for it or against it," responded Sen. Barack Obama. The moment spiked the ire of the Clinton campaign, which felt Mr. Russert had pressed her too harshly on the issue.
"The momentous nature of this election will not be captured as well without Tim Russert," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who has worked since 1989 with Mr. Russert on the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
In 1989, Mr. Russert coordinated with Al Hunt, then the Journal's Washington bureau chief, to form the first media-sponsored poll so that the network and the newspaper would have a public-opinion source independent of the candidates' own polls. They enlisted one pollster from each party; while the Republican pollsters have changed, Mr. Hart continues to conduct the polls.
"It was the first media poll to use outside pollsters and became the standard," said Mr. Hunt, now Washington chief for Bloomberg News, and a longtime Russert friend. "We put it together seamlessly. In 16 years, we always had fun and never had a disagreement. That's because he was always right."
Praise poured in Friday from the politicians, candidates and pundits who sat across the table from Mr. Russert on "Meet the Press" since he began hosting in 1991. "Tim asked the tough questions the right way and was the best in the business at keeping his interview subjects honest," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
On the campaign trail, the presidential candidates expressed sadness at the news. Sen. John McCain called him "a great journalist and a great American." Sen. McCain said Mr. Russert "leaves a legacy of integrity of the highest level of journalism."
Sen. Obama recalled meeting Mr. Russert for the first time at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. "He's somebody who over time I came to consider not only a journalist but a friend," Sen. Obama told reporters. "There wasn't a better interviewer in television, a more thoughtful analyzer of politics and he was also one of the finest men I knew, somebody who cared about America, cared about the issues, cared about his family."
"Tim was the best of our profession," said Bob Schieffer, Mr. Russert's counterpart on CBS's "Face the Nation." "He asked the best questions and then he listened for the answer. We became very close friends over the years. He delighted in scooping me and I felt the same way when I scooped him. When you slipped one past ol' Russert, you felt as though you had hit a home run off the best pitcher in the league. I just loved Tim and I will miss him more than I can say, and my heart goes out to his son, Luke, and his wife, Maureen."
-- Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Jackie Calmes contributed to this article.
 
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