Tim Russert - America's Best Political Journalist Dies at 58

[Luke_Wilbur]

On Friday, June 13, NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert died. Sunday mornings will never be the same.

 

Tim Russert was the Managing Editor and Moderator of Meet the Press, aired on Sundays at 12noon ET with rebroadcasts at 3PM ET and 6PM ET. Since joining Meet The Press in December 1991, the program has become the most watched Sunday morning interview program in America and the most quoted news program in the world. Russert has interviewed every major figure on the American political scene.

 

Russert also served as the political analyst for NBC Nightly News and the Today Program and anchored The Tim Russert Show, a weekly interview program on CNBC. He was also a contributing anchor for MSNBC and served as senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News.

 

NBC News' Tom Brokaw

"Tim was a man of many passions – his family most of all, his faith, his country, political journalism, baseball and the Buffalo Bills. As a working class Irish-American with a Jesuit education his range was wide and deep – from the sensibilities of blue-collar voters to the politics of the Vatican, from the power plays on Capitol Hill to the power plays on network television. Almost all of our conversations – and they went on every day – ended with some version of, 'Can you believe how lucky we are to be doing this?'"

 

Carl Bernstein, journalist

"Tim Russert was a transformative journalist. He changed American television news, by bringing to it his own values: integrity, fairness, good humor, humility, and a unique sense of how reporting, history, and politics are bound together. He was masterful at exposing hypocrisy. I knew him as a source, a colleague, a competitor, and - on the air - as the subject of his tough questions. His approach to every role was always the same: he loved what he did, and sought a way to the truth, often unconventionally."

 

Tim Russert was a man I trusted to find the truth to a story. He will be greatly missed by all those that followed his career. The Washington DC Online Community will greatly miss, but never forget him. Our prayers go out to his family and friends.