FoxNews.com gossip Roger Friedman launched a seemingly personal battle against TV Guide today when he didn't see Tim Russert's face peering at him from its cover this week. While some folks think the media have gone overboard with Russert tributes, Friedman expected the magazine covering Russert's industry would put him on the cover. And when he didn't spot the mug of the deceased? He blamed new owner Macrovision, which is trying to sell off the print title while hanging on to its dot-com.
Except as so often happens with Friedman, his argument holds little water. CONTINUED »
NBC News has tracked down whoever updated Tim Russert's Wikipedia entry with news of his death, before any major outlet, including NBC, had reported it — and fired the culprit. That's because 30 Rock wanted to privately notify Russert's family of his death, at their D.C. newsroom, and not have them learn about it on a television broadcast. Or Wikipedia. "We were not prepared to say anything until all the family had heard,” says NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust, who says the network asked other networks to hold the news. It was a "junior level" staffer at Internet Broadcasting Services, which operates NBC's local news websites, who made the changes. Naturally, this brings the Times to conclude that while Matt Drudge has his own breaking news platform, Wikipedia is the only Internet soapbox for the little people.
Though Brian Williams filled in the moderator's chair on Meet The Press today, Mr. Tom Brokaw will take over through the election as we suspected. It might've been easy to think Williams was actually quite apt for the gig: He followed Russert's traditional line of questioning that brought up past statements and offered politicos the chance to contradict themselves or reaffirm their past; Joe Biden was today's example, asked about the vice presidency. (He had said before that under no circumstances would he want to be VP. He said that again today. Then he qualified that statement by saying he doesn't want to be VP because Barack Obama just wouldn't ask him — if if Obama did ask, he'd have no choice but to say yes.)
But that's not what Jeff Zucker and Steve Capus had in mind. The official announcement came this morning, and Williams telling viewers at the end of today's broadcast, with 30 Rock revealing Brokaw will take over MTP beginning next Sunday and last through the November election. CONTINUED »
Was the coverage of Tim Russert's death really overkill? It might help to put it in perspective by, for example, comparing the amount of air time Russert posthumously received to the amount Peter Jennings did when he died in August 2005. And while that might be the most accurate comparison, keep this in mind: Russert died while still manning a broadcast, while Jennings died three months after his sign-off; when Russert died, there were big-ticket news stories to cover, while Jennings' passing took place during a lull in major events. The numbers are below. CONTINUED »
As we noted yesterday, Plamegate columnist Bob Novak, in writing a tribute column about his friend Tim Russert, also threw the late Meet The Press host under the bus, exposing him as one of Novak's anonymous sources — something you shouldn't do to a friend, living or dead.
But that wasn't the extent of their relationship, trafficking information back and forth.
In a few sentences, Novak labeled Russert a serial talker, handing off information that, for whatever, reason, he couldn't use. Perhaps he was too close to the source. Perhaps the information was given to him v. v. off-the-record. Perhaps Russert had, in what would be a shock to many who knew him, an ax to grind. CONTINUED »
For this week, at least. No decisions about a permanent replacement have been made. NBC News President Steve Capus says they're making decisions week-by-week. Meanwhile, Russert's Saturday show will be replaced with a mix of documentary programming and live news.
Of all the things to say about Tim Russert since his passing six days ago – from Dan Rather's "What a pro" and Bill O'Reilly's "My prayers go out to him and his family," to Chris Matthews' "Tough, regular, hardworking" and Jay Leno's "He never talked down to you even though he knew way more" – why do we find the least comforting thing to be Bob Novak's outing Russert as one of his sources?
In the Washington Post today, the Valerie Plame outer, who says he "talked with Russert on the telephone two or three times a month," offers the usual compliments for the late Meet The Press anchor — and then posthumously exposes Russert as a serial leaker. CONTINUED »
NBC News President Steve Capus, who says "numerous people" will be hired to replace Tim Russert, on the media's chattering classes predicting who will take over the late newsman: "I put it in the borderline-crass territory. I saw something posted that I've made a decision about this or that. Honestly, it's inappropriate. [...] It's too soon. I'm sitting in my funeral suit, coming home from honoring a man who was the glue that held us all together." [TVN] We get it, Capus: You don't want to offend Russert's family, anyone in the NBC News division, or the industry in general. But MTP is also quite a franchise, and it'd be corporate negligence to not be considering who will take over running NBC News' D.C. bureau. You've even been holding conference calls on the matter.
Tim Russert's 22-year-old son Luke, who upstaged everyone from Tom Brokaw to Barbara Walters at his father's funeral yesterday, accomplished something remarkable: bringing Barack Obama and John McCain together. He requested the two sit next to each other as his father's service, and they agreed. And then there was Bill Clinton, his wife on one side, Condoleezza Rice on the other. And then Obama's campaign chief David Axelrod was found talking with Hillary Clinton's Terry McAuliffe in the lobby. It was a moment that brought polarizing personalities to quiet. [Photo: TVN]
Nonsensical media "critic" Jon Friedman weighs in with his latest bit of not-though-out piece of advice, this time for NBC News: Do not hire Tom Brokaw to fill in for Tim Russert. Doing so would signal a vote of "no-confidence" in Meet The Press and his future, goes Friedman's flawed thinking. "As terrible as [Russert's] passing is, it affords NBC the chance to put a new stamp on Meet the Press, the most popular of the many Sunday-morning news shows examining politics, and the opportunity to showcase one of its stars. [...] There will no doubt be a clamor for NBC to bring Brokaw out of retirement. His presence can comfort viewers in mourning and provide continuity during a difficult period. That's one way of looking at the decision. But these factors are outweighed by the need to blaze a dynamic, post-Russert path."
Then there's one other way of looking at the decision: CONTINUED »
"Tim Russert's death last Friday at the age of 58," proclaims Psychology Today's Dr. Stanton Peele, "produced the greatest national outpouring of grief for a single 'civilian' since John Lennon was killed in 1980."
That's a pretty hefty claim to make, given that so many famous "civilians" have died since Lennon. Among those in recent memory: Aaliyah, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Ed Bradley, Sydney Pollack, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Hunter S. Thompson, Tupac Shakur, and yes, Notorious B.I.G. He had a hit single made about his death. So is the head doc magazine really going to stand behind this claim, or was it just because seemingly every television channel was running Russert coverage that it could be easy to think that way?
Critics like Jack Shafer called out NBC and others for over-airing Tim Russert memories. Now, Shafer gets a couple servings of STFU: "I think Shafer may suffer from a related syndrome to being a 'Beltway insider,' that which afflicts people who live (or think) just outside the Beltway. He's so hyper-aware of how the D.C. syndrome can consume people's ethics and humanity that he discounts the very real connection that some of them (like the host of the No. 1-rated Sunday public affairs program) have with viewers — and not just political junkies either, but the ordinary folks who have been posting tributes to my web site and many, many others (including those who commented on the story by Tim Rutten, most of whom ignored how hard Rutten came down on Russert). Not a lot of those commenters were really that hung up with the amount of media coverage, so long as they could contribute in some small way, such as speculating on his successor or remembering his impact as an author, like the comment that began: 'I read Big Russ and Me shortly after my father passed away…'"
This past Sunday's special Meet The Press racked up some 6 million viewers, bringing the show's second-highest ratings ever — only the MTP the Sunday after 9/11 did better, with just under 9 million viewers. Compare that against the show's average 3.9 million viewers. MSNBC's viewership on Friday, after Tim Russert's death was announced, spiked 220 percent; competing cable networks faired well, also. So when Jack Shafer wonders, among many other critics, what "possessed NBC News to televise a never-ending video wake," and why other networks followed suit, well, there you go. It wasn't so much any of the networks' interest to boost ratings (though the cynic in us suggests otherwise), but Russert's death clearly impacted Americans the way any high-profile passing does, and the news divisions fed that beast.
Even though her blogger troops have been blog-blog-blogging about Tim Russert's death since it was announced on Friday, it wasn't until Sunday that Arianna Huffington finally wrote anything about it. Maybe it's because she couldn't stand him? "To some fans, her detached wistfulness didn't even amount to faint praise. Defenders of Huffington argue that she won't be a phony. While she never wished the man harm, they say, she can't pretend she didn't find him wanting as a reporter. Huffington's "Russert-Watch" delivered withering critiques of his "Meet the Press" interviews. In 2005, she wrote that Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman's appearance proved Russert's show has become 'journalism's answer to the 'E-ZPass.' Mehlman was allowed to … manipulate, obfuscate and 'disassemble' his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.'" [R&M]
On a NBC News conference call this morning, NBC head Jeff Zucker, NBC News chief Steve Capus, and anchor Brian Williams joined in with a number of others to discuss the future of Meet The Press and the D.C. bureau. A source who was not on the call, but overheard a colleague's speakerphone listening session, says Tom Brokaw's name was bandied about. (It's unclear whether Brokaw was on the call.)
More on the post-Tim Russert future is here.
… based on reports from earlier this month, the Countdown host posted this item on Daily Kos:
Kindness to the grieving - even if it's forced, even if it just augurs a later pouncing - is appreciated.
For what it's worth, he didn't position himself publicly on this for obvious reasons, and we had had a very pleasant, very constructive "what can we do to keep our two styles from hurting each other's broadcast, or the whole organization," conversation. But Tim Russert was as supportive of what I did as anybody else at NBC, and his role on the MSNBC election coverage was voluntary and enthusiastic.
So that matter is all cleared up now. Right? Right?
Because he considered himself too ugly. Then Michael Gartner, then the president of NBC News and the man who hired him, printed up sweatshirts that said "Tim Russert, Not just a pretty face." The rest is ratings history. [USAT]
When Tim Russert died on Friday, the first television media outlet to report the news was NBC, with Tom Brokaw interrupting the broadcast with a "Special Report." Except he didn't break the news. Many credit the New York Post with the story, which got picked up by the Drudge Report at approximately 3:33pm EST; six minutes later, at 3:39pm, Brokaw was on the air. (Rumor has it, sources at Fox News and CNN also had the story, but they held it so NBC could break the news.)
Except none of those guys actually broke the news. In all likelihood, as Jon Fine notes, Wikipedia did. At 3:01pm, Russert's Wikipedia entry was updated … with a date of death: "Timothy John Russert, Jr. (born May 7, 1950 died June 13, 2008) is an American journalist who has hosted NBC's Meet the Press since 1991." A little snooping revealed that whoever updated the entry logged on from a computer at Internet Broadcasting Systems, which runs the websites for NBC's owned-and-operated local stations.
And while the old guard might be surprised that anything less than an authority like Brokaw could be the one to break the news, those living in the now know this is a foolish notion. In its short lifetime, Wikipedia has a history of breaking death news. CONTINUED »
The endless coverage. The remembrances of seemingly anyone who had ever breathed the same air. The special Meet The Press edition. Not seventy-two hours into Tim Russert's last call and already everybody's got an opinion about the blanket coverage of Russert across NBC's properties as well as other news channels. Some might argue criticizing the tributes is in bad taste; after all, a man who you'd be hard pressed to find a negative thing to say about, just died. Then there's the other argument: The news media all too often shoots now, asks questions later, then performs a postmortem on its behavior, only to never learn its lesson. Might these critiques of Russertmania be appropriate? CONTINUED »
One might think 30 Rock wouldn't be particularly excited about Peter Boyer's 6,200-word New Yorker profile of Keith Olbermann that's intent on revisiting every charge of polarizing bias aimed his way in recent weeks and months. But, apparently, they weren't, since everyone from MSNBC head Phil Griffin to Olbermann himself participated in the article. Then again, the profile isn't as anti-Olbermann as, say, Fox News' PR department could have hoped.
Olbermann, who says he chose his 4th floor corner office at 30 Rock because it has a view of Fox News' studios across Sixth Avenue, has enjoyed both Jesus and pariah status atop his Countdown post. His fans are legion; his critics are loyal. Some of his biggest naysayers have, rightly so, come from across the avenue: Names like Bill O'Reilly and Steve Doocy come to mind, and those are just the ones with public soapboxes.
But many of the folks who have tired of Olbermann's routine also walk the same halls of 30 Rock he does. CONTINUED »
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