MY GUARDIAN OBIT OF TIM RUSSERT

My Guardian obituary of Tim Russert is in today's paper.

This wasn't commissioned until after I'd posted Saturday morning's quick reaction to Russert's death, and I wrote it Sunday.

It has been edited slightly: I liked his line, after testifying in the Libby trial, that it was easier throwing grenades than catching them, and I also gave him credit for recognising Ohio as key to the 2004 election. I had included a quote from Nicholas Lemann, describing how his book is not really about his dad, but about validating the likeable, just-folks, Russert 'brand'.

There was also a bit describing the apotheosis of the celebrity/inside problem, pointing out that the April Clinton-Obama debate, where Charles Gibson (celebrity chat show host) and George Stephanopoulos (ex political insider) took their imitation of the Russert method to near-parody in their embarrassing chase of the 'gotcha' moment through trivial question after question. It was a valid point, but for a piece on media, not for Russert's obit, and I'm glad it was lost. The lead bull isn't responsible for every word from the herd.

One thing I didn't write, but I can't help thinking, and the photo the Guardian used reinforced my thought, was that if you were going to hire an actor to play Russert, it might be WC Fields.
Or vice-versa.

Re-reading it, I don't think I emphasized quite enough just how much agenda-setting Meet The Press could do, and, especially in the sense that Russert's tenure on the programme virtually paralleled the presidencies of Clinton and this Bush, how pathetic, how trivial, how tragic, that agenda-setting was. But perhaps that would be speaking too much ill.

Follow this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/16/usa.television

RIP TIM RUSSERT

While reading the eulogies for Russert, who by all accounts was a likeable sort of guy, and a Buffalo Bills fan, it is important to remember that he was perhaps the first of the political 'insiders' to move into a media analysis role, and all the way to celebrity status. Unlike, say, Cokie Roberts, he wasn't a hereditary member of the Beltway mob, but he opened doors for more staffers to move into punditry. It was no coinicidence that George Stephanopolous was, like Russert, at the center of punditry controvery during the debates. Criticisms of the questioning during this year's primary campaigns usually concentrate on party-partisanship, but beg the question of the bigger partisanship, which is the view from inside the Beltway, and the disconnect between there and the rest of America. It's hard to see what's really going on when you're in your Georgetown townhouse and moving for the summer to Nantucket alongside Jack Welch.

Instead, the insiders go on television and radio and use sex and gender and race to pander to their audience and set an agenda designed to serve as a red flag to a bull. It's the electorate that suffers.

In Britain, we're still in the stage of journalists doing political TV, sort of where the US was in the 50s and 60s, but because journalism has been an hereditary insider profession in this country for so long, there's actually more movement from journalism (or TV production) TO politics here.

Though British media does seem to regard it as their duty to provide a living for certain politicians after the voters reject them --such as Portillo (and his emanuensis, Gove) and Oona. Perhaps it's an Oxbridge thing?