I have long felt that Russert was one of the mainstream media's biggest shills for power, who had a deceptive skill of making himself look like a hard-questioning journalist while not actually asking the right questions at all. I would submit that this is exactly the reason why he was as "successful" as he was. He liked to trump up his supposed blue collar cred because he was from Buffalo. As a journalist who hails from Cleveland, I call BS on that.
I especially loathed Russert's role as moderator in debates of presidential candidates over the past year, where he was clearly not getting at the real issues and where he seemed to take great delight in torpedoing Dennis Kucinich with a cheap shot question about UFOs that was framed to ridicule. Kucinich was of course the lone candidate who was prepared to speak truth to power.
It has pained me to see so many, even on the Left, talking about how much they'll miss Russert's work on Meet the Press. This tells me that the mainstream media's tactics of mass deception are as effective as ever. But at least there are a few voices out here in the wilderness with me and I submit these links and quotes as evidence to back up the viewpoint that Russert was no journalistic saint:
Real Journalists Don't Make $5 Million a Year
Truthdig, June 26, 2008
By Chris Hedges
http://freepress.net/node/42006
We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year and who gave a platform to the powerful and the famous so they could spin, equivocate and lie to the nation. We were repeatedly told by these television courtiers, people like Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer, that this talk show host was one of our nation's greatest journalists, as if sitting in a studio, putting on makeup and chatting with Dick Cheney or George W. Bush have much to do with journalism...
No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview...
All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system. In the slang of the profession, these television courtiers are "throats." These courtiers, including the late Tim Russert, never gave a voice to credible critics in the buildup to the war against Iraq. They were too busy playing their roles as red-blooded American patriots. They never fought back in their public forums against the steady erosion of our civil liberties and the trashing of our Constitution. These courtiers blindly accept the administration's current propaganda to justify an attack on Iran. They parrot this propaganda. They dare not defy the corporate state. The corporations that employ them make them famous and rich. It is their Faustian pact...
CounterPunch Diary
The Russert Send-Off
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06212008.html
Now Russert had the power, the clout and the venue to ask tough questions in the run-up to the war in Iraq which began in March, 2003. There were plenty of serious people with informed views about whether or not Saddam Hussein really had nuclear missile to level London and bio-weapons to kill millions. But Russert was part of the Amen Chorus for a war that sent countless men, women and children to their deaths. When it mattered, he entertained no dangerous differences with the White House line. Was this a performance worthy of “a true American patriot”?
Did this “true American patriot” commanding the attention of millions every week not open his mouth to lament the fact that the U.S. government has been trashing the Constitution and tossing the Bill of Rights in the toilet? Negative on that one too.
Published on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 by the Daytona Beach News-Journal
Journalism’s Tim Russert Problem
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/17/9674/Journalism’s Tim Russert Problem
by Pierre Tristam
Respect for the man aside, there’s a matter of respecting journalism when assessing Russert’s place in the trade. That respect has been lacking in the almost universally fawning tributes to Russert and the craft he represented. Journalists and politicians from the president on down have formed yet another procession of praise and prostrations worthy of, say, Diana or Elvis. But Tim Russert?
That’s what journalism as we know it today is, primarily: an adjunct to the cult of celebrity, a shareholder in the business of image management to protect, foremost, the business of America. When the powerful pay tribute to Russert (”he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades,” were President Bush’s autopilot words) they’re paying tribute to themselves — to the establishment Russert represented, defended and, unfortunately for us, encrusted...
The truth is that on any night of the week Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” does more in a two-minute segment to show in politicians’ own words how venal, dishonest, contradictory and just plain dense they can be than Russert did in his Sunday services. Russert’s master was always the political structure he grilled, but never fundamentally questioned. You always knew whose side he was on: power, not truth — and, by power, I don’t mean his own, of which he had plenty, but the powerful men and occasional women he invited to his Versailles...And one more from last year -
Tim Russert: Stop the Inanity
Russert passes for a "tough" interviewer by adopting a confrontational pose rather than asking genuinely challenging questions. Which is why he's a terrible moderator for our presidential debates.
Paul Waldman | October 31, 2007 |
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=tim_russert_stop_the_inanity
Last month, near the end of the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, moderator Tim Russert -- known as "Washington's toughest interviewer" and perhaps the most influential journalist in America -- had one last chance to pin the candidates down with his legendary common sense, persistence, and no-bull style. This is what he asked, first to Barack Obama:
"There's been a lot of discussion about the Democrats and the issue of faith and values. I want to ask you a simple question. Senator Obama, what is your favorite Bible verse?"
When Obama finished his answer, Russert said to the other candidates, "I want to give everyone a chance in this. You just take 10 seconds." Predictable banality ensued...I have a fantasy that at one of these moments, a candidate will say, "You know what, Tim, I'm not going to answer that question. This is serious business. And you, sir, are a disgrace. You have in front of you a group of accomplished, talented leaders, one of whom will in all likelihood be the next president of the United States. You can ask them whatever you want. And you choose to engage in this ridiculous gotcha game, thinking up inane questions you hope will trick us into saying something controversial or stupid. Your fondest hope is that the answer to your question will destroy someone's campaign. You're not a journalist, you're the worst kind of hack, someone whose efforts not only don't contribute to a better informed electorate, they make everyone dumber. So no, I'm not going to stand here and try to come up with the most politically safe Bible verse to cite. Is that the best you can do?"
Apparently it was...
