EDITOR’S NOTE: Very sad. Our condolences to his family and colleagues. Tim was a role model for ER as far as making politicians accountable.
By Howard Kurtz and William Branigin, Washington Post
Tim Russert, the Democratic operative turned NBC commentator who revolutionized Sunday morning television and infused journalism with his passion for politics, died this afternoon.
Russert, 58, collapsed while recording voiceovers for his Sunday morning interview program, NBC reported. He was initially reported to have suffered a heart attack while working in his office on Washington’s Nebraska Avenue, but the network said later only that he was “stricken at the bureau” and subsequently died. Further details were not immediately available.
Russert served as NBC’s Washington bureau chief and the host of “Meet the Press,” the top-rated Sunday talk show, which had an enormous influence on politics and was marked by his aggressive style of interrogation. As a frequent commentator on the “Today” show, “NBC Nightly News” and other shows, Russert wielded such clout that when he declared that Sen. Barack Obama had wrapped up the Democratic nomination last month, his pronouncement was treated as a news event in itself.
Russert’s television career was marked by a voracious appetite for politics and a shrewd understanding of how politicians interact with the media. He also wrote a book about his father, titled “Big Russ and Me.” Last week, he moved Big Russ to a nursing facility.
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw gave MSNBC viewers the news of Russert’s death at 3:40 p.m.
“He worked to the point of exhaustion so many weeks,” Brokaw said, adding: “This news division will not be the same without his strong, clear voice.”
Brokaw said Russert had just returned from a family trip to Italy with his wife, writer Maureen Orth. They were celebrating the graduation of their son, Luke, from Boston College this spring, Brokaw said.
Russert served as host of “Meet the Press” longer than any other person and was “one of the premier political analysts and journalists of his time,” Brokaw said. He began hosting “Meet the Press” in 1991.
Tributes to Russert began pouring in as news of his death circulated.
President Bush said in a statement from Paris, where he is on a European tour, that he and first lady Laura Bush “are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Tim Russert.” Bush continued: “As the longest-serving host of the longest-running program in the history of television, he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades. Tim was a tough and hardworking newsman. He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews. And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it.”
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican candidate for president in the November elections, called Russert “truly a great American who loved his family, his friends, his Buffalo Bills, and everything about politics and America.” In a statement, McCain added: “He was just a terrific guy. I was proud to call him a friend.”
Obama (D-Ill.) issued a statement in which he described himself as “grief-stricken with loss.” The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who met Russert in Boston in 2004 when Obama addressed his party’s national convention, said, “There wasn’t a better interviewer on television, a more thoughtful analyst about politics.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said: “Tim was a warm and gracious family man with a great zest for life and an unsurpassed passion for his work. His rise from working-class roots to become a well-respected leader in political journalism is an inspiration to many. Tim asked the tough questions the right way and was the best in the business at keeping his interview subjects honest.”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Russert’s reputation was such that when Kerry announced his decision to run for president in 2004, “the only place to do it was on “Meet the Press.” Kerry said Russert “loved to hold the big guys accountable, and in the original, intelligent, studied way he did it, he emerged as the biggest guy of all.”
One of Russert’s competitors, Bob Schieffer of CBS’s “Face the Nation” program, said the two delighted in scooping each other, the Associated Press reported. “When you slipped one past ol’ Russert, you felt as though you had hit a home run off the best pitcher in the league,” the agency quoted Schieffer as saying. “I just loved Tim, and I will miss him more than I can say.”
“There was no one who studied, prepared and worked as hard on a story as Tim,” said Albert Hunt, a close friend and executive editor for Washington at the Bloomberg news service. “His only agenda was to inform and educate his millions of viewers,” Hunt told the agency. “There was no one more generous or supportive of friends and colleagues; there was no one more fun to talk politics with, or just to be with.”
Michael A. Newman, Russert’s internist, said efforts to resuscitate Russert were begun immediately and continued at Washington’s Sibley Memorial Hospital, to no avail, AP reported. An autopsy is pending, Newman said.
Russert was born May 7, 1950, in Buffalo, N.Y., the son of Irish American parents. His father was a World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four children in a working-class neighborhood in South Buffalo. Russert attended Buffalo’s Jesuit Canisius High School and went on to study law at Cleveland State University.
He got his start in New York Democratic politics, working on the political campaigns of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Gov. Mario Cuomo. He served as chief of staff to Moynihan from 1977 to 1982 and was a counselor in Cuomo’s Albany office from 1983 to 1984.
Russert was hired by NBC at its Washington bureau in 1984 and became the network’s Washington bureau chief four years later.