Here Today... Gone To Hell!

He collapsed at work.

Very sad, I really liked this guy.

http://cbs4.com/national/tim.russert.dead.2.747824.html

NBC's 'Meet The Press' Host Tim Russert Dead At 58
NEW YORK (CBS) ― NBC Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert is dead. The longtime moderator of "Meet The Press" was 58 years old.

According to the MSNBC biography on Russert, he was the Managing Editor and Moderator of "Meet the Press" and political analyst for "NBC Nightly News" and the "TODAY" program. He anchors "The Tim Russert Show," a weekly interview program on MSNBC. Russert also serves as senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News.

watching MSNBC right now.. thats fucked up.   way too young, and way unexpected.  :(

Damn, that's awful news  :-[

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-06-13-russert-obit_N.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press and its Washington bureau chief collapsed and died at work Friday after suffering an apparent heart attack. He was 58
Russert, of Buffalo, took the helm of the Sunday news show in December 1991 and turned it into the most widely watched program of its type in the nation. His signature trait there was an unrelenting style of questioning.

Washingtonian magazine once dubbed Russert the best journalist in town, and described "Meet the Press" as "the most interesting and important hour on television.

He also wrote best-selling books, Big Russ and Me, in 2004, and Wisdom of our Fathers, in 2006.

This year, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: New York Times
Russert also was a senior vice president at NBC.

FoxNews did it.

FoxNews did it.

They just said he had a very special relationship with his dad...and how he loved kids.

I am guessing this will be another princess Diana thing, people go crazy for this kind of stuff.

man it has to be really bizarre for his collegaues to be reporting this right now.    everyone is very emotional.

This wasn't funny the first time you said it.

Yea, Tom was holding back the tears, you could see it in his face. Tough day for everybody.

I was away with the family for the day, tuned into NBC's coverage of golf, and thought I heard the news but I wasn't sure if I really heard it, ya know?  HTGTH confirms it...terrible news, again, another person gone way too early.  :(

p.s. I should have mentioned...he just seemed like a nice guy.  I know public personas don't always give us a window into a person's private life (Charles Kuralt for example) but he seemed like a nice, honest fellow.  (a fellow upstate NYer to boot)
 :(

that's awful news. such a shame.

i really enjoyed his work. he's been a big part of my sunday mornings for years now. and i LOVE sunday mornings.... coffee, breakfast, sunday paper, espn, and meet the press.

i'm gonna miss his work and what he would have brought to the election season.

He would have been fun to watch this year.  A shame to lose one of the few good newsmen left.

yea, and its a shame he didn't live to see Obama get elected President.

Really, he was the best part of MSNBC's election coverage.

Agreed.

Very sad and my deepest sympathy.  I liked him a lot.

No matter the company, he seemed very fair  and down the middle as they come.  He will be missed.

What a shame. He was a good journalist who treated everyone with respect. This is just another example of why you should live each day as if it's your last. And never take anything for granted.

Brokaw seemed surprisingly choked up as well.  It was a bit hard to listen to, even.  Clearly, he was well respected by all.

We need more than 2 threads for this very important news, so who is starting the 3rd?

Timmy interviewing Rice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAwb2H-ZWJY&feature=related





Yes this is very serious news....I can feel your sincere sadness....but it was funny the first time I Stallowned you and shut you the feck up  :peace:

God bless his soul.

R.I.P.

Boy, it's been a big old bag of dumb around here lately.

Lets show the man a little respect and keep the juvenile comments to yourself.

Did you catch the interviews he gave about the latest book he wrote about his father? I was really impressed by him after that.

Off topic a little bit, I disagree with Pat Buchanan on most things, but I like listening to his commentary, he's much more level headed than  guys like Hannity.

I concur.



Brokaw broke into the US Open Golf tornament broadcast to report the news, there was a TV on at the client I was doing work for today.

A damn shame, 58 years old, way too soon to go. Brokaw mentioned Russert would work so hard he would reach the point of exhaustion. My hat goes off to Mr Russert.  :'(

In my opinion, he was one of the rare few in his profession who would call out his guests, ask tough questions, and not let anyone sidestep a question.   I'm very sad to know that he's gone.

this is terrible....Tim Russert was a great guy....who really had one of the few remaining actual NEWS shows....very little fluff in his shows and interviews....a true professional....

I gained some respect for Olbermann today.   He spent at least 4 hours straight leading the commentary, and he was clearly distrought and emotional.    That takes balls.   He even complimented Joe Lieberman, shows the wide range of people that had a lot of respect for Russert. 

Very sad news RIP :(

very upsetting when u think about death

u just never know when u wake up if this is gonna be your last day or not.


RIP

Meet the Press and Sunday mornings wont be the same without Tim... :no:

And that's why life is exciting.

Good luck in your next life Tim.

I bet he's moderating the Adams-Nixon debate right now... : ok:

Rest in peace, Tim.

This is a great loss to the field of journalism for sure.  RIP.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/15/russert.sunday/index.html

NBC remembers Russert on first 'Meet the Press' since his death

Story Highlights
The moderator's chair on NBC's "Meet the Press" stood empty Sunday
Veteran journalist collapses at work, according to NBC
The 58-year-old Russert died of an apparent heart attack
Tom Brokaw: "Our issue this sad Sunday morning" is honoring Russert
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The moderator's chair on NBC's "Meet the Press" stood empty on Sunday in remembrance of Tim Russert, the man who had occupied it for 17 years.

As the show's host, Russert became a mainstay of television journalism's political talk.

He died Friday of apparent heart attack, according to the network. He was 58. The network said Russert collapsed while at work.

Colleague and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, who broke the news about the anchor's death, spoke on Sunday the familiar first four words of the news program, "Our issues this Sunday." He noted that those were the same words Russert had been recording for the show when he collapsed and died. Watch Brokaw break the news ?

"Our issue this sad Sunday morning is remembering and honoring our colleague and friend," Brokaw said.

"He said he was only the temporary custodian," of this program, which he called a national treasure, Brokaw said. "Of course, he was so much more than all that."

Brokaw sat among some of Russert's other colleagues in the front of the show's set, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin and political analysts Mary Matalin and James Carville, who is also a CNN contributor. Watch as Carville describes his friendship with Russert ?

"This is where you separated the men from the boys," said Matalin, who is married to Carville. "You weren't a candidate until you came on this show."

A montage of clips from past years showed various politicians -- former President Bill Clinton, President Bush, former presidential candidate Ross Perot, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- sitting across the table from Russert. Watch politicians, journalists pay homage to Russert ?

Some showed the politicians as they squirmed.

"Look, I was asked - I shouldn't have said that," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said on the show in May 2007.

Richardson had appeared on the show as part of the "Meet the Candidates 2008" series, and was grilled by Russert about his contradictory positions on numerous issues.

"So you're - I've been in public life for 25 years, you're going to find a lot of these; it seems you found them all here," he said, smiling somewhat sheepishly.

"I'm just trying to set the record and trying to give you a chance to respond, which is fair," Russert had responded.

In another clip at the end of an April 2006 show, Sen. John McCain told Russert, "I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation."

Russert had appeared as an unlikely icon for television news, with his cherubic face and dimpled chin, but he was a prolific interviewer and tireless journalist, one with an intimidating breadth of political knowledge and insight.

"It was a very easy show to prepare for in the sense that you knew he was not going to ask you any questions out of left field; you knew his thing was going to be entitlements, you knew his thing was going to be past statements, you knew where he was coming from," Carville said Sunday of "Meet the Press."

Matalin countered: "It was simple in the fact that there was no 'gotcha,' but it was not easy. Because you had to be 10 questions deep, because he was going to be 12 questions deep."

As news of his death hit the airwaves and Internet, tributes rolled in -- with nearly everyone praising his prowess as a journalist and as an interviewer.

Bush, in a written statement, called Russert "a tough and hardworking newsman."

"He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews," Bush said. "And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it."

Longtime CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite said, "Broadcast journalism lost one of its greats today. Tim Russert was a giant in our field -- a standard-bearer of journalistic integrity and ethics. His masterful interviews and roundtable discussions are legendary. This is a tragic loss for journalism and for all who were privileged to know him."

But colleagues who knew him best also praised his warmth, and described him as a mentor.

"I think it's so poignant that we're talking about Tim on Father's Day because he was a father to so many of us," said California first lady Maria Shriver, who once worked for NBC.

On Friday, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said, "He was always teaching each of us to be as rigorous as he was in looking at all the facts, examining everything and then being as balanced and fair and down-the-middle as anyone could possibly be."

Washingtonian Magazine once dubbed Russert the best and most influential journalist in Washington, D.C., describing "Meet the Press" as "the most interesting and important hour on television."

In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. His two books -- 2004's "Big Russ and Me" and 2006's "Wisdom of Our Fathers" -- were both New York Times bestsellers.
 

Fox News did a hit job piece on the guy the next morning.

Why am I not surprised.

Douchebags.

i did see that. that was good stuff. the story about the baseball glove his father bought him was classic.

and the tribute during meet the press yesterday was great. not too many dry eyes watching that...especially near the end when they were playing "thunder road."

Saw an interview with his son today and was also impressed. Very articulate and centered, despite his loss. A reflection of his Father, and his Father before that.

Very touching overall, despite all our differences, we can probably agree that family is the most important thing in life. The rest is all bullshit.

Are you serious??? I heard them say nothing but good things.  I heard Brit Hume speak very, very highly of him.  What did they say SLC?

Olbermann reported today that it was this morning, but he didn't show anything.

Even Hannity spoke very well of Russert so I'm surprised Fox stooped that low so soon.  :-\

It was their morning show, which has at times, gone round and round with Fox's Chris Wallace (Who at the time was standing up for Obama, personally I think he likes him.)

Olbermann needs to calm the fuck down.  He should spend time on his own show instead to busting balls of the lame morning show Fox has.  Olbermann was everything Russert wasn't.  An arrogant, condensending, dickhead piece of shit.  Olbermann should take a lesson from Russert in Class and Grace.

I even heard Chris Wallace say great things about him and how Russert kicked his ass each week on meet the press....  It had to be one of the bumbling idiots on that morning show.

He was a great new man, but I had problems with his shift to the right in recent years. RIP! Sundays will never be the same.

Can you imagine him, Brinkley, Murrow, and Huntley hosting a show; if there is an after life, I would think they sit at the round table

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/18/blitzer-russert-funeral-brings-presidential-foes-together/

WASHINGTON (CNN) ? It was a pretty amazing sight. John McCain and Barack Obama came to Tim Russert?s funeral mass today here in Washington. The fact that they took time out from their campaigns to do so was already impressive, and certainly a lovely tribute to Tim. But they also did more. They wound up sitting right next to each other during the 90 minute service.

Before the service started, they were chatting rather amiably and intensely for 15-20 minutes. Those of us who were invited to the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown were impressed that Tim, even in his tragic and untimely death, was able to bring these two presidential candidates together.

It was a powerful statement of Tim?s unique role here in Washington.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who presided over the gathering, warmly welcomed McCain and Obama. He spoke eloquently about Tim?s faith, family and journalistic profession.

So did Tim?s remarkable 22-year-old son, Luke, who delivered some beautiful Words of Remembrance. He told them what his dad would have told them: the American public wants their presidential candidates to discuss the most important issues of the day and not get bogged down with trivial personal attacks.

Luke also said that his dad was often so irritated when politicians refused to acknowledge they had changed their minds on important policy issues. There?s nothing wrong, Luke said, in someone?s changing his or her mind. He?s right of course. Obama and McCain were clearly paying attention.

I suspect those strong words will have an impact on these two presidential candidates in the coming weeks and months.

Have you ever seen 'Meet the Press"?  I never recall a shift to either side for Tim Russert.....with the exception of his praise of Barack Obama, at times I thought was overboard....most can agree on that.....but he was a fair journalist....

I didn't watch it much, but the right thought he favoured the left, and vice versa....which probably means he was doing a good job.

Russert took the opposing view of whoever he was interviewing.   And yea his adoration of Obama was very apparent, but for the most part he was very unbiased.. which is rare in this age of youtube and cable news.

That was the great thing about Russert. His personal views were to the left, but you never really saw it when he was conducting an interview or moderating a debate. He was always objective and fair to whoever he was dealing with.

Yeah, I've watched it since Bill Monroe was the moderator(though, I much prefered Brinkley). Russert's politics shifted much more to the right in the 90s relative to his stories about Raygun and Papa Bush.

Perhaps, it was because a new administration had come to power and he is an equal opportunists ... IDK, but I used to love the way he would tear in to the aforementioned administrations.