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Russert coverage a 'derelection of journalistic duty'

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by WaylonJennings, Jun 19, 2008.

  1. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    the coverage was over-the-top, but also quite watchable to these tv eyes. guess my attitude is we all have the ability to change the channel, so i didn't mind it at all.
     
  2. Claws for Concern

    Claws for Concern Active Member

    Shortly after it happened, as awful as it is that a man died suddenly, didn't deserve more than a mention. I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but to me, journalists should NEVER be considered or treated as "celebrities" EVER. That's what Tim Russert's unfortunate death has turned him into -- whether he likes it or not -- and what will be one of the lasting images of him thanks to his media colleagues. How sad.
     
  3. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Don't forget that Russert, just like Princess Di, died on a weekend, the time when TV news, especially cable, doesn't have enough actual news to fill the time.
    Easy, and understandable, to just cover Russert's death or rerun old Meet the Press shows instead of rolling out the 345th showing of Lockup:Statesville Prison.
     
  4. Tucsondriver

    Tucsondriver Member


    The saturation was out-of-control ridiculous, no arguments there, but Hitler? good at first? We're grownups and I'm not the pc police, but c'mon...
     
  5. Human_Paraquat

    Human_Paraquat Well-Known Member

    I don't know Ace, but I assumed he was making a joke, sort of an anti-Marge Schott. Imagine: Like Hitler or the Rocky franchise, the Russert death coverage started off good but went too far.

    Back on topic: I think the fact this happened on a Friday played a big part in the way it got played. I was even initially sucked in day of, but when I saw the son on TV Monday, I rolled my eyes and just kept flipping channels.
     
  6. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    Other people-- just plain viewers-- housewives or accountants-- shed tears over Luke Russert's interview.

    I had the owner of the shop where I get my hair cut come over to me and strike up a conversation about Russert. No prompting from me. He told me he's going to tell his sons the same thing Russert told Luke-- no entitlement.

    A lot of tears were shed over the Russert coverage-- by ordinary Americans, not fellow journalists. You guys need to know that.

    And if you don't care that a huge segment of America was moved by the coverage-- you need to get a little more in touch with your readers/viewers.

    Because it's not just about "what you think they should get." Some of it IS about what they want.
     
  7. jaredk

    jaredk Member

    Sentimentality for the suddenly-dead-and-famous-for-being-on-TV aside, if you want an actual discussion of Russert's actual work, read Bob Somerby at Dailyhowler.com.
    Here's one bit of a Somerby column in which he remembered Russert's pathetic interview with Bill Moyers on the PBS show about the media rollover on Bush's Obscenity.
    *******


    Who can forget the embarrassing exchange Russert had with Bill Moyers, just last year? Had Russert been duped by the war machine? Fairly plainly, Moyers was asking—and as he answered, Russert made one of the most embarrassing statements a big journalist ever has made:

    MOYERS (4/25/07): Critics point to September 8, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the New York Times. And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the New York Times. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

    RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the New York Times. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that. My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

    MOYERS (voice-over): Bob Simon didn’t wait for the phone to ring.

    Has any journalist on this level ever embarrassed himself so badly? Russert complained that no one called him with the actual skinny. As he continued, Moyers compared Russert’s passive conduct to the work of CBS’s Bob Simon, who somehow managed to air a report casting doubt on the nuclear claims. Simon hadn’t been sitting around hoping the phone would ring:

    MOYERS (continuing directly): You said a moment ago when we started talking to people who knew about aluminum tubes. What people—who were you talking to?

    SIMON: We were talking to people —to scientists—to scientists and to researchers, and to people who had been investigating Iraq from the start.

    MOYERS: Would these people have been available to any reporter who called or were they exclusive sources for 60 Minutes?

    SIMON: No, I think that many of them would have been available to any reporter who called.

    MOYERS: And you just picked up the phone?

    SIMON: Just picked up the phone.

    MOYERS: Talked to them?

    SIMON: Talked to them and then went down with the cameras.

    MOYERS (voice-over): Few journalists followed suit.

    Simon sought—and obtained—information. Russert, massively more influential, seemed to say that he just sat around, hoping his phone would ring. Scripted pundits avoid this embarrassment when they speak about Russert’s great preparation—about his abiding love for the truth, which only We Irish truly possess. But if Russert’s concern for the truth seemed shaky in that part of his session with Moyers, the aforementioned “blarney” was still in place. If we want to be honest, we have to say this: For good or ill, Timothy Russert never stopped selling his self-pimping blarney—the blarney which helped make him such a big star. At one point, in a bit of obscene self-promotion, Russert interrupted this life-and-death discussion to hand this pure blather to Moyers:

    RUSSERT (to Moyers): Look, I'm a blue-collar guy from Buffalo. I know who my sources are. I work them very hard. It's the mid-level people that tell you the truth.

    “I'm a blue-collar guy from Buffalo!” If we’re going to be honest, we have to say this: Russert presented this self-promotion in every conceivable situation. This was not a good thing about Tim. This conduct was really quite bad.

    Why didn’t Russert make those calls? We can’t tell you. According to (Chris)Matthews, Russert’s “Everyman/Mr. America patriotism” made him a bit of a dupe for the claims of the war hounds. But then, Russert bought the pseudo-conservative company line on many large aspects of modern politics. He bought the company line on Social Security—pretty much made it his pet issue—and he relentlessly pimped the issue, in grossly misleading and incompetent ways, over the past dozen years. Then too, he pretty much bought the company line about who “the phonies” were. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw said Russert knew who “the phonies” were because his blue-collar dad would tell him. (Yes. He actually said that.) But it was always fairly clear who Russert thought the phonies might be.
     
  8. broadway joe

    broadway joe Guest

    It's not so much about what we think they should get, or what they want. It's about news judgment. The coverage of any good man who dies too young can bring readers/viewers to tears. The question is, why would Russert warrant such wall-to-wall coverage? Tragic as his death was, it's impossible to make the case that it warranted the NBC Nightly News ignoring all the other news of the day, or the Today Show treating it as the lead story three days after the fact. NBC let its feelings for a colleague cloud its judgment of what is appropriate coverage, and that's something a news organization should never do.
     
  9. I don't know anyone who wanted that much Russert coverage.
     
  10. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    I think some mistakes were made on NBC's part because the people who work there are in mourning...

    More than that, though, NBC had lost not only a guy in front of the camera, but in fact a vice president and bureau chief.

    There was no Russert to step in and say, "Let's not overdo it."

    That said, I think it was better to err on the side they did. It was a doozy of a story that hit a lot of Americans.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Yeah, it was far more important than the Iowa flooding.

    I mean, I was a huge Russert fan. I watched almost every week. But NBC can't defend what they did by just saturating the airwaves with coverage of this.

    I can't imagine what they'll do if Brokaw ever kicks.
     
  12. jaredk

    jaredk Member

    If Brokaw is half the guy we all think he is, he already has said to the NBC folks, "Don't you dare do that for me."
     
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