With Deference …

It’s sad when someone dies young and suddenly. There’s a strong temptation when that happens to lionize that person. So it is that with Tim Russert people are now saying that he was some kind of special journalist. Not so. He was a toady.

Broadcast journalism is a tough world – those people have to fill air time within narrow constraints. They cannot confront the powerful, and so have to idle away the hours talking about minutia and attacking the smaller people in public life. But if they are pretty and add an air of serious discourse to the job, they often take on an air of professionalism and intellectual rigor. Tom Brokaw is a toady – he has spent his entire career reporting to us with deference on the activities of the powerful without upsetting them. He’s typical, and revered. He was allowed to ascend the alter, to perform the pièce de résistance of the profession – the presidential interview. That’s because he was dependable. So too was Russert.

Dan Rather was the same way – he earned a reputation during Watergate for challenging the powerful when that was the thing to do, and then settled into a comfortable career in the Brokaw mode, using respect and deference and humor to repeat to us those things that those in power wanted to know. But he crossed the line a few years back and did a hard-hitting, confrontational piece about George W. Bush, and paid the price. That’s a lesson they all take to heart – if you really do journalism in that world – if you investigate and confront, you’re out.

But how do we have news? Well, we don’t have much of it. We have 24 hour news channels now, but they fill their hours with the non-confrontational and trivial – missing white women and OJ and natural disasters. Politicians come and go, and depending on their stature, they might be challenged. Dennis Kucinich, if he ever got air time, was taken for a rocky ride. He’s low-stature. John McCain will have an easy time. If indeed anyone is asked a hard question, there will be head scratching and wonderment, and the credentials of the person asking the question will be called to task.

This is the world that Tim Russert thrived in. He was perfect for the job – low key, respectful, yet erudite and polished. He was an odd looking man for a TV centerpiece – usually they are movie-star pretty folks, and Russert wasn’t that. But he had all of the other qualifications. He brought gravitas to a trivial job. He made it look like journalism.

Here’s Glen Greenwald on Russert, pre-death, when you could say things about him that were true:

Or they’ll point to “liberal” Tim Russert — Tim Russert — about whom Cheney press aide Cathy Martin said: “I suggested we put the vice president on ‘Meet the Press,’ which was a tactic we often used. It’s our best format, as it allows us to control the message.” That’s the same “liberal” Tim Russert who confessed that he operates by the defining law of the Government propagandist: “When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it’s my own policy — our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission.”

We don’t have much journalism in this country. With the passing of Tim Russert, well, you never know, depending on who takes his place, we might have a little more. But don’t bet on it.