In all the eulogizing and remembrancing of Tim Russert, comes this reaction from Tam of View from the Porch.
For pity’s sake, Gerald Ford didn’t get this much florid eulogizing in the news when he croaked recently. Of course, he was only a President of the United States, not a member of the media…
And it’s rather true. Russert was the dean of the Washington press corps, and wrote a very good book about his father, but his importance lies only in the fact that he was the Pundit of Pundits. His prime virtues–discipline and hard work, and love of family–were private ones that only showed obliquely in public. Yet he’s receiving the sort of sendoff usually seen for people who made very important news–not merely reported news.
Moreover, often as not, he was really interested in reporting news so much as creating entertainment disguised as news.
And that’s really the game here. Russert’s goal isn’t to inform his audience. He’s there to “make news”—to get his guest to say something embarrassing that lands in the next day’s papers or on the NBC Nightly News. The politicians, in turn, go on the show determined not to make news. And why do they bother? Because, as Geraghty has noted, it’s a rite of passage, and any politician too chicken to play Russert’s inane games would never garner the respect of the political class. And then, seven days later, it all happens again like clockwork. If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.
[Matthew Yglesias, in an article that appeared in May 2007]
Russert was one the prime practitioners of punditry for the sake of pundrity and entertainment disguised as news. His chief achievement was making inside the Beltway Washington even worse than it was before.
Tags: obituaries, Tim Russert
