Watchdog Blog

Carolyn Lewis: Too Much Tim

Posted at 3:34 pm, June 26th, 2008
Carolyn Lewis Mug

Out of a decent respect for the memory of Tim Russert, I have held back from commenting on how most of the leading television organizations – CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC – handled the news of his untimely death.

Certainly it was appropriate to announce his passing and to add brief encomiums about a fellow newsperson who had filled his role well. But five whole days, hours of precious news time, lauding somebody who, after all, was not a major figure on the world stage? What’s going on here?

I interpret it as an example of the wider phenomenon of journalists so ga-ga about their perceived celebrity that they, like Narcissus, can’t help peering into the river to admire their image. It’s part of a growing tendency for television journalists to interview and talk about other journalists instead of going out to talk with people beyond their inner circle who, just possibly, might have different knowledge to offer..

It smacks of incestuousness, of vicarious self-aggrandizement, as though an on-air person could somehow be promoted to somebody truly important, somebody who actually passed laws, or led armies, or did anything beyond interviewing and talking. If Tim Russert could be made to seem the equivalent of a president, a prime minister, a talented artist, a hands-on healer, then why can’t we other reporters, too, claim a statue on the village square or our place on Mount Rushmore?

This illustrates that the inner circle of reporters is so out of touch that its members could think the death of one of their own trumps news about the ordinary people who need vital information – what we call news. Reporters, the folks who should have been minding the store, were too busy trying to turn one of their own into a star in the firmament to take notice.



2 Responses to “Too Much Tim”

  1. Jim Michie says:

    Thank you, Carolyn, for your observations on what I considered to be the secular “canonization” of Russert who was instrumental in launching the movement to cloak and bathe too many journalists in celebrity. You may recall that, beginning with the first moderator of “Meet the Press”, Spivak, the program provided viewers with a dynamic format involving four or five print and broadcast reporters. Russert changed all that by reducing “Meet the Press” to a show that should have been renamed, Meet Tim Russert.” Was he a good interviewer? Yes, he was, but no match for four or five reporters who would follow up on each other’s questions. It is my hope that GE’s NBC will decide to revert to the old format rather than attempt to create yet another celebrity. But I’m not at all optimistic at this point.

  2. jrw says:

    I know this is a by-now-trite observation, but television journalists in particular have become so insular, so myopic and so pack-oriented that they over-report things of import to their narrow world. I’ve never watched Russert. I’m genuinely sorry he’s dead. However, to canonize a guy who asked politicians questions on Sunday morning television seems to over-value what he did.

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