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Enough Already!
by James Glaser June 16, 2008 Tim Russert died at work Friday, and like all deaths, it is sad for his loved ones. But enough was enough by Saturday, and still the tributes continued into Sunday, like his death was the most sorrowful thing that has happened in America this year. Tim Russert was probably a great father and a great son, but people with those credentials die in America every day. The news media has wallowing in a communications slough of despair since Friday when Russert's death was broadcast on every television station, and I am sure they will stay that way with "specials" on Tim's life, to be announced. Let's be honest here. Tim Russert was a lawyer and a politician first. Right after law school he worked for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then for New York Governor Mario Cuomo. After those two jobs he became a "journalist" working the rest of his life for NBC News. In 1991 Tim Russert took over the Meet the Press show and stayed there until his death. Russert lived with his family in a house in Washington DC, and he vacationed at his 6,220 square foot home in Nantucket. As an aside, Wikipedia says that Nantucket vacation home is valued at $7.2 million. Media people in America today are not like your beat reporter of fifty years ago. Tim Russert was a huge media star who had the power to help or hurt any politician he wanted to. With that star status comes big money. Television and media stars can not relate to the average Americas in any way. Their lives are much closer to Hollywood than they are to main street. So, Tim Russert's friends in the media decided that nothing going on in the world this weekend even came close in importance to the death of one of their own — not the presidential campaign nor even the four American soldiers killed in Afghanistan this weekend. Every Soldier or Marine who has lost his or her life in Iraq or Afghanistan had the same story about their life as Tim Russert did. Many of our service people were great dads or moms and great sons and daughters, but you would never know that from our media. Most of the time the media never even gives the names of those killed in action. The Soldiers and Marines killed had a lot of friends who grieved for them, and they will be remembered, too. The difference is that Tim Russert was a rich, powerful media star, so the announcement and acknowledgement of his death has been multiplied and magnified. So, enough is enough. Let Tim Russert's family and friends morn their loss like the families of our brave troops. But just keep in mind that if the acknowledgment of the deaths of our troops could have even ten percent of the millions of dollars in media time spent on the death of Tim Russert, maybe some good could come out of their deaths, and this war could come to an end. You know, admit it, if from the out-set of this war, every American killed in battle had gotten the coverage that Tim Russert has gotten, George Bush's war would have been over five years ago. |
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