I join virtually the entire nation and perhaps much of the world in mourning the tragic and premature death of Tim Russert. We have suffered a great loss, the magnitude of which we will feel for years to come.
Curiously, I was working on an essay about the very sad state of news journalism today. The laughable excesses and hyperbole of FOX News and the tragic fall into a cesspool of tainted journalism by MSNBC have simply destroyed the great legacy of Edward R. Murrow, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite.
With Tim Russert's passing we are left with the mere shell of old fashioned journalism. Today we are force fed clowns who substitute ambush interviews, bombastic rants and one-sided political commercials for any real reporting.
Russert was great. His trademark of hard hitting and probing questions were always delivered with civility, manners and grace. But he got the answers. In the process he made Meet The Press the most important forum for any politician or government official.
While NBC will no doubt audition dozens of potential substitutes, Tim Russert cannot be replaced. That is the magnitude of our loss.
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The best reporting and consolidation of stories I have found this afternoon is found on The New York Times at this link: NBC’s Tim Russert Dies
The photograph above was provided by NBC News and was taken by Virginia Sherwood.
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