“Meet the Press” Host Has Apparent Heart Attack
“Tim Russert, NBC journalist and host of ‘Meet the Press’ collapsed at the NBC offices Friday and died of an apparent heart attack,” the Associated Press reported Friday afternoon. “Sources say Russert was tracking ‘Meet the Press’ at the time. He was 58.
“According to a fire official, fire and EMS teams dispatched to NBC Studios at 1:41 p.m.
“According to an eyewitness, medicals crews were there until about 2:15, when Russert was transported to Sibley Hospital.
“NBC’s Tom Brokaw says Russert’s wife and son, Luke, were in Italy at the time, celebrating Luke’s graduation from college.”
Russer’s internist, Dr. Michael A. Newman, said on MSNBC that an autopsy had found that Russert had an enlarged heart and significant coronary artery disease.
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell said the death was a reminder to journalists, who in a political campaign can exist on little sleep and fast food, that “We need to take care of ourselves.”
“Russert, who also served as senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News, had moderated ‘Meet the Press’ since 1991 — longer than any other broadcast journalist — and had been with NBC News since 1984,” the Radio-Television News Directors Association noted in a statement.
“‘Tim was one of the outstanding journalists of our time,’ said RTNDA president Barbara Cochran, who worked with Russert during her tenure as executive producer on ‘Meet the Press.’ ‘He had a passion for news and a passion for politics and combined them in a remarkable career. He reinvigorated the Sunday morning interview format and made these programs must-viewing across the nation. He was also a generous friend and mentor who gave willingly of himself in so many ways.'”
“Tim was a stalwart journalist,” said Rafael Olmeda, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, in a statement. “His passion for political journalism was unmatched.”
“There are few in this business who are as revered among his peers as Tim, he was truly a giant among broadcast journalists,” said Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. “When Tim spoke, Americans listened,” said NABJ’s vice president of broadcast, Kathy Times.
|
|
|
Gwen Ifill |
Gwen Ifill of PBS’ “Washington Week” and “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” told Journal-isms, “I can honestly say I loved that man. Tim is the one who lured me from full-time newspapering into full-time television. He promised me he would do everything to help me succeed, and he did. And when I got the opportunity to host my own program on PBS, Tim personally intervened to allow me to be released from my contract.
“He was the best political journalist I ever met, and he absolutely got it that he could not possibly know all the ways there were to know a story. That was rare in a world where African American voices are so often devalued. When I worked for Tim, mine never was.”
Ifill added: “Late on Tuesday, June 3, just as he signed off from hours of live MSNBC coverage on the night Barack Obama clinched the nomination, Tim said this:
“‘I was thinking: What would I like to do tomorrow? No more primaries to cover. (chuckling) One, I’d like to be in that meeting between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But absent that, I would LOVE to teach American history in an inner-city American school tomorrow morning. How GREAT would that be? Just to look in those faces and listen to those kids — what they witnessed and saw tonight.’
“Speaks for itself.”
Russert and his show were the kings of the Sunday-morning talk show world, and such black journalists as Ifill and Eugene Robinson would appear occasionally. Last week, correspondent Ron Allen was part of a panel discussing the presidential campaign.
Stephanie Jones, executive director of the National Urban League Policy Institute, gave the Sunday talk shows a critical examination in a report called “Sunday Morning Apartheid.” The 2006 edition, covering two years, showed that on “Meet the Press,” 74 percent of the broadcasts had no black guests and 85 percent had no interviews with black guests. The competing shows had similar results.
But Jones said that in the summer of 2005, when she and a colleague asked to meet with the program’s staff, NBC responded instantly and Russert himself showed up. “He was very open and very interested in the study,” Jones told Journal-isms. “He had read it. He said they wanted to do better and we had an open dialogue. He did not duck away from us. That’s one of the things I thought about when I heard the news” about his death.
Diversity on “Meet the Press” has improved since the 2006 study, she said.
Few who watched “Meet the Press” on April 15, 2007, will forget how Ifill challenged Russert, a frequent guest of radio host Don Imus, who was under fire and lost his show in the uproar after he called the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos.”
“There’s been radio silence from a lot of people who’ve done his program,” Ifill said during Russert’s half-hour roundtable with reporters. “Tim, we didn’t hear that much from you.”
“He took it,” Jones said. “He did not have to do that. Some of those other shows would not put on anybody who would challenge them.”
Here are thoughts about Russert from Journal-isms readers:
Columnist Deborah Mathis: “For all of us, the days are numbered. Still, we expect some people to always be there. Tim Russert was one of them. What a powerhouse of a journalist. And what was great about him was that he not only earned the acclaim, prestige and influence he enjoyed, but he worked like he had to keep earning it. That’s a lesson for the ages”
Jeff Ballou of Al-Jazeera English: “Simply put, Tim was first-class, honest, gracious, and talked to anyone who would approach him regardless of their station in life.
“He was happily unimpressed, but respectful of high titles and the swanky Washington scene. At the risk of repeating what will be a familiar refrain, he cared far more about family than anything else. It was a privilege to observe and know him to a small degree as a colleague. My favorite memory of Tim was his rather lengthy talk with my mother at the annual White House Correspondents holiday party years ago. The talk was warm and I was frankly stunned at the level of detail he had tracked and critiqued my work as a then-White House beat producer for the now CONUS news service.
“I also marveled how he easily switched to things Pittsburgh and trying to genuinely get to know her — as much as anyone can at these functions. She still talks about it to this day. It was finally a privilege to know him as a supportive network partner when NBC joined editorial forces with Al Jazeera. He believed in the partnership and the frontiers being created by it. I’m positively not alone for being a better reporter and person simply by watching how he worked and conducted himself.”
Patrice Gaines, columnist, author and activist: “When someone is good at what they do, their goodness shines through their gender, through their race, through all the superficial human definitions we use. Tim Russert was just good.”
Debbie Harrison, manager for public affairs and Web for the Advanced Medical Technology Association: “Tim Russert was a regular guy.
“I had the opportunity to meet him at an event at the National Press Club a few years ago. What I liked about him was the fact that he was a regular guy. He was very approachable. I had advance knowledge of this quality.
“When NBC news correspondent David Bloom died in 2003, I remember being very moved by a Scripture reading. I searched but could not find it. I sent an e-mail to his office, and his assistant sent me a personal response — and the actual section of the text from which he read: the Book of Wisdom, 3:1-11. I still have the printout.”
Keith Murphy of XM Satellite Radio: “Tim was the bar for journalists of all colors. His integrity shone through his fair yet aggressive questioning during the recent Democratic debates.”
More at the end of this column.
In a statement, Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and anchor of the competing “Face the Nation,” said, “Tim was the best of our profession. 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.”
CNN announced that “Larry King Live” would devote its entire hour to Russert.
