I just read this diary, in which a Kossack screams "HOW DARE YOU!!!" (yes, with caps and three exclamation points) at anyone who has had anything negative to say about Tim Russert today.
I must admit, I'm mystified.
I am prepared to believe (as I've been told all day) that Tim Russert was a nice person, a friend to virtually everyone in the news business, a mentor to many, and a respected and admired colleague.
I'm also not interested in reading full-strength hit jobs of the man today, nor would I want to see any celebration of his untimely death.
But I find some of the adulation -- both online, and more significantly, on television news -- way over the top.
All 3 news channels were non-stop Russert today. Virtually no other news was being reported AT ALL.
Floods in Iowa, the lawyers marching in Pakistan, a prominent politician in the UK resigning over civil liberties, the latest developments in Iraq or the presidential campaigns: the U.S. TV news world had almost nothing to say about any of this.
It's as if Tim Russert's death was the only thing in America -- the only thing in the world -- that mattered today, as far as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox were concerned.
To me, this is a symptom of the dangerous narcissism of the news media. I can believe the sincerity of all the reporters and anchors who assured us that Russert was a great guy, a good friend, a serious, thoughtful journalist (tho I have had plenty of issues with his work at times).
But their hours and hours of on-air grieving was about them as much as it was about Russert. The loss of a member of their elite club loomed larger to them than the lives of millions of people across this country and around the world.
An hour of tribute? Sure. Maybe even 2 hours, on Russert's home network of MSNBC. But all 3 cable news channels spent at least 3 or 4 hours (UPDATE: commenters below say MSNBC spent 8 hours on it) exclusively and exhaustively focused on this topic. The same platitudes, anecdotes, and solemn words of praise were reported over and over and over.
Russert was a journalist and a TV personality... and was very well-paid for it. He died at a tragically young age. But he was not a saint, or a great leader.
There was a lot else going on in the world today that went unreported because the press thought the only story that mattered was their sadness about the death of one of their own. It was, as a commenter in that other diary put it, a weep-a-thon.
We are not in thrall to the mainstream media. Let's not gratuitously insult the late lamented Tim Russert, but let's also keep things in perspective. At least a dozen U.S. soldiers (and doubtless many more Iraqis) have been killed in Iraq in June alone. The Supreme Court just handed Bush his behind on habeas corpus. Obama announced his plan to enhance the solvency of Social Security. But the infotainment industry we call "cable news" decided that their buddy's death was the most important thing in the world today. Let's not get too caught up in their latest self-involved drama.