Very few times you can walk into a newsroom and find every person gathered around a couple of televisions, the last time I can remember was 9 11. The reasoning why is we are so jaded it takes an event for us to get pulled away from doing our jobs and today we had one of those events, Tim Russert died from a heart attack. He is not a big dog like Tom Brokaw, but he is near the top in recognized news people. When ever NBC has something political he was always there. I believe most people in America knew who he was. They may not have watched Meet the Press or any other news, yet I guess most would say, "Oh yeah that guy."On occasion I have been to big events where there are national crews there and most of the time I could careless. I never got a chance to be in the same location as Mr Russert, but I would have tried to find out where he was and walk over to see. For someone like me who doesn't get awe struck by celebrities that's pretty big for me. As a journalist I respected his political skills and ability to get answers out of his interviews. As Tom Brokaw said at the end of his special coverage, NBC news will never be the same. I agree, I am sorry that we will no long have a man like Russert, we may never see someone as his ilk again.
2 comments:
I brushed up against him a few months ago. I was in Cleveland for the NBC sponsored Democratic Debate and part of the national set was next to the WBNS corner that was taped off for local media. A genuine good man in person, I always wanted to talk to him, I didn't get to speak to him that night and now I never will.
My sympathies to his family and everyone at NBC news.
I was very surprised to hear that he died--it's definitely a loss for NBC- their on-air staff has been so different this weekend.
And things definitely won't be the same for NBC. Russert was one of the few remaining pundits who was a nice, likeable guy and not a blowhard jackass. Unfortunate, because we need more people like Tim Russert.
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