Tim Russert, NBC’s Gentleman Journalist, Died June 13th, Aged 58

When they built you, brother, they turned dust into gold
When they built you, brother, they broke the mold

— Bruce Springsteen, “Terry’s Song”

ST. LOUIS — It is hard to think of any other prominent broadcast journalist of his generation who was so professionally rigorous and yet so genuinely amiable as Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press and the head of NBC’s Washington bureau, who died unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.

With a boyish ebullience for politics bubbling just beneath the steady visage that he crafted to serve his considerable office, Russert was a touchstone — perhaps the touchstone — for mainstream news out of the nation’s capital. And in past year he had grown into something of the pater familias of the election’s press corps. It is hard to imagine a Sunday morning without one of his prosecutorial wind-ups or an election night without a cut away to one of his learned extrapolations.

I know there are many, many other good journalists working in Washington today, but it is still inspiring that someone so immersed in politics as Russert was could serve his profession so well while at the same time exuding such hope for the country. Seeing him grin on those primary nights, you just knew he cared about what he was reporting, that his work was more than a job for him. “Can you believe we get paid for this year?” he recently asked Al Hunt, an old colleague of his.

As is well known, he was also devoted to family. Here is Chuck Todd talking briefly yesterday about how Russert was fatherly both at home and at the office. Today I’m thinking especially of his son, Luke, who just graduated from BC, and how difficult this weekend must be for him and the rest of the Russert Family. I can only hope that the legacy familial love he left to them and the rest of us is some consolation for their loss.

Russert was a rare creature, a persnickety newshound with a cheery personality and a gift for making complex politics important for a popular audience by distilling its essence rather than diluting it into sensational blather. We’ve lost him at perhaps the most important moment in a generation of American politics, and even though there’s some solace knowing how happy he was to watch this year’s campaigns, it’s still hard to believe that he won’t be with us in the fall to see how it all turns out.

God save Tim Russert. We miss you already.

6/14/08

###