I audibly gasped when I read that and immediately turned on MSNBC to see what was happening.
My daughter, Emma hasn't really watched TV during her college years, so she wasn't well acquainted with the venerable newsman, but I was, and I sat there, misty eyed and choked up, shocked that someone I watched all the time was gone. Just suddenly gone.
I've become quite cynical about the media in the last several years. This may seem disingenuous coming from someone who makes their living writing for newspapers and magazines, but being a features writer is far different than being an investigative reporter. My job is to amuse and entertain, theirs is to inform and question the status quo. Somewhere along the line the line between entertainment and news became blurred and news started mirroring entertainment a bit too closely. When Britney Spears' meltdowns are lead stories on the evening news, something very Alice-In-Wonderland is happening.
Tim Russert was one of the few standard bearers around. He was a man of incredible integrity. He asked the tough questions, but he was also a gentleman and kind.
I always respected his thoughts on political issues, and was inspired by his passion for what he did. He made white boards and delegate counts exciting for goodness sakes!
But more than all the career accolades I admired his commitment to his family. As I've sat here choked up listening to Matt Laurer, Tom Browkaw and Mike Barnicle talk about him, I've tried to figure out why I am so sad about someone I didn't even know. I have two thoughts. One, when you watch someone on TV all the time they become a part of your world. No, you don't know them personally, but Tim Russert was someone who let you see who he was, not common amongst news people.
Secondly, he was a man who seemed unparalleled in his devotion to his family. He wrote two books about his dad, "Big Russ and Me: Father and Son:Lessons of Life," and "Wisdom of Our Fathers: Letters From Daughters and Sons."
It's seems doubly cruel that this man who adored his father and his son would pass away on Father's Day weekend. As a woman who grew up fatherless, I have always sort of collected father figures in my life, often fantasizing about the type of dad I wished I'd had. My father, long absent from my life, died last December, and many times I would hear Tim Russert wax so happily about his son and thought, how lucky is that young man to be so adored? I am equally passionate about my children, but it seems so rare to hear about a dad who is so besotted with their children, I found that so refreshing and delightful.
This upcoming election is going to be missing a very important voice. I counted on Tim Russert to ask the questions I wanted answered, and to ask the ones I never would have thought of.
I cannot imagine the ache his wife Maureen Orth, a writer at Vanity Fair, and his son Luke, who just graduated from Boston College are feeling today. My daughter is the same age as Luke and when Tim would talk about the sadness of leaving his son at college, I knew just what he was talking about. When he glowed with pride about the upcoming gradation of Luke, I also knew what he felt.
My hope is that after the dust settles from this tragic, sudden loss, that news people everywhere will ask themselves the question, when faced with a tough situation, "What would Tim Do?" Striving for that standard alone would result in news that truly would be "fair and balanced."
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