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If it's Sunday...
Jun. 13th, 2008 01:13 pmIf it's Sunday and you're me, then you're watching CBS's Sunday Morning and then skipping the last half-hour so you can catch Meet the Press with Tim Russert. But if it's Sunday you won't be doing that anymore.
Tim Russert died of a heart attack today. In the world of journalism and politics that's a pretty big deal. The epitome of exhaustive research in journalism, tempered with a kind yet firm smile, he never ceased to amaze me with his ability to pull quotes from his guests, outside columnists, and other politicians as if a magician plucking a dove from a hankerchief and flicking his wrist to set both aflame.
Naturally, I had a nerdy childhood. Sunday mornings then were not too far off from Sunday mornings today. I still remember the first ever such morning. I heard the television in my parents' room playing a GE ad, the type of advertisement meant more for investors with muffin crumbs on the business section than for consumers, and I peeked in. They welcomed my brother and me and we watched Charles Kuralt smile like a storyteller hired to play a banjo for the elementary school kids because the teachers were ready to end the school year.
As I grew older I'd pay more and more attention to the programs after Sunday Morning, in between the Sunday Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts, and liked the no-nonsense sincerity of both Bob Schieffer and Tim Russert. They were calm and didn't resort to trivia and spin like so many newsfolks do today (you can tell they're pretty good if they rarely, if ever, have clips of them played on The Daily Show). Tim Russert was quite young, but he seemed like a journalist of a bygone era in which integrity mattered more than satiating the advertisers, networks, corporations, and public all to ready to be talked down to.
For many people Sunday mornings will never be the same for Tim Russert's having left it far too early.
Tim Russert died of a heart attack today. In the world of journalism and politics that's a pretty big deal. The epitome of exhaustive research in journalism, tempered with a kind yet firm smile, he never ceased to amaze me with his ability to pull quotes from his guests, outside columnists, and other politicians as if a magician plucking a dove from a hankerchief and flicking his wrist to set both aflame.
Naturally, I had a nerdy childhood. Sunday mornings then were not too far off from Sunday mornings today. I still remember the first ever such morning. I heard the television in my parents' room playing a GE ad, the type of advertisement meant more for investors with muffin crumbs on the business section than for consumers, and I peeked in. They welcomed my brother and me and we watched Charles Kuralt smile like a storyteller hired to play a banjo for the elementary school kids because the teachers were ready to end the school year.
As I grew older I'd pay more and more attention to the programs after Sunday Morning, in between the Sunday Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts, and liked the no-nonsense sincerity of both Bob Schieffer and Tim Russert. They were calm and didn't resort to trivia and spin like so many newsfolks do today (you can tell they're pretty good if they rarely, if ever, have clips of them played on The Daily Show). Tim Russert was quite young, but he seemed like a journalist of a bygone era in which integrity mattered more than satiating the advertisers, networks, corporations, and public all to ready to be talked down to.
For many people Sunday mornings will never be the same for Tim Russert's having left it far too early.
