He ruined Meet the Press. He had a formula: He knew he would have a famous guest on, and had his staff spend the week before going through old video or print statements to spring a gotcha on him or her. Not to give viewers greater understanding, but just as a cheap stunt. Or he'd try to get a politician to admit they were running for president to try to break some "news". Or he'd be a concern troll about the deficit in 30 years time, to show he was a "serious" person. Everyone knew this was his MO, so his guests always knew what to expect.

It was pathetic the way he ran that show in his last few years.

He showed he was too interested in cultivating relationships with the Bush administration and others in government in his actions and testimony in the Plame case.

But what was worse was the way NBC and many others blew him up into being some demigod of public affairs journalism. Olbermann still gets all verklempt when he talks about him. :-/

Russert could have been much more in life, but seemed to enjoy his chosen role too much. His deification was disgusting.

http://www.slate.com/id/2193689/

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.

I can't help it. :-(

I remembered this morning: Russert absolutely loved James Carville and his wife Mary Matalin. He would often have them on together. They may have been fine political operatives and good at helping people get elected, but who in their right mind in America outside the political establishment in DC would give a fig about what they thought about anything?!?!

He is a big reason why political discourse on TV is so very bad these days. They don't talk about policy, they talk about the game.

Public affairs is, or should be, different from the DC political games. Russert thought that political games were all that mattered. Unfortunately, he taught his colleagues that syllabus all too well. C.f. Todd and Greenwald.

Cheers,
Scott.

Would Lawrence Spivak have had them on Meet the Press regularly? I doubt it. http://www.nytimes.c...et-the-press.html

Known for his terrier-like tenacity as an interviewer and what seemed to be a muted but waspish personality, Mr. Spivak always said he saw himself as nothing more than a devil's advocate.

His style and that of the journalists who regularly appeared on his program stand in sharp contrast to a later generation of television pundits who sometimes used their broadcasting time to express their own opinions.

Mr. Spivak's directness in asking questions may have paved the way for the later approach, but he was always in control of himself, much as a prosecuting attorney might be. Thus, the guests on his program were most respectful of the questions he asked.

In 1960, for example, when John F. Kennedy, then a Massachusetts Senator seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, appeared on "Meet the Press," he said, "I suppose, Mr. Spivak, that you have a long list of challenging questions for me."

Mr. Spivak replied, "Knowing my high regard for you, Senator, I don't think you'd want me to pull my punches."

"No," Kennedy responded, "but I wouldn't mind if you lowered your regard a bit."

[...]

Through the years, the guest list of "Meet the Press" was largely a Who's Who of the world's movers and shakers: Sister Kenny, Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, Eleanor Roosevelt, Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru of India, King Hussein of Jordan, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, President Fidel Castro of Cuba, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany, John Foster Dulles, Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen and others of equal luster.

"Television has an awesome facility for showing up sincerity as well as insincerity," Mr. Spivak said. "So if a man is honest and knows his stuff, he'll emerge with his proper stature. By the same token, so will a phony."

Yeah, Carville and Matalin are in that league. Sure....

And before you bring up Olbermann again, he's not running MTP. And my opinion is that if he were, he would treat it with the seriousness it deserves - much more than pomposity of Russert or Gregory. Countdown is a political gossip show - "Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?"

Cheers,
Scott.