Tim Russert, the host of “Meet the Press,” whose tough grilling of politicians became a gold standard for American journalism, died today of an apparent heart attack. He was 58.
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Russert, who moderated several debates during the presidential primary season, had just returned from a trip to Italy with his wife and son to celebrate his son’s graduation from Boston College. He was at his desk working when he collapsed, and died a short time later, according to NBC News.
Russert was unique in the world of mostly blown-dry TV news talking heads.
He himself noted ruefully that he was born with wide cheeks, rather than the square jaw of Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. But he brought a political junkie’s encyclopedic knowledge to his job as the Washington bureau chief of NBC. The product of a Jesuit education and law school training, Russert cut his teeth on politics from the inside, working first as chief of staff for the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and then as a press secretary for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
He was hired to work for NBC’s Washington bureau in 1984, and became bureau chief four years later. He quickly became known not just for his huge rolodex, but for his insights into how politics was played and his prodigious preparation for interviews.
“Anyone who ever substituted for him on the vary rare occasion when he was not on “Meet The Press” would be “overwhelmed with the obligation of living up to the Russert standard,” said NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, a longtime colleague who talked about Russert on the air.
That preparation involved going through anything a guest had ever said or written, and comparing those things trying to “find the wiggle room.”
Mitchell said that guests knew “they would have to brace themselves for the ‘Meet the Press’ primary,” which came before the so-called money primary and before Iowa and New Hampshire.
Russert played a huge role in this year’s presidential campaign, taking part in several debates and appearing live on the network’s primary night coverage.
“I don’t know anyone who went on Meet The Press, who came away feeling that Tim had an agenda, or treated them unfairly,” said Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. “Perhaps they felt he had been rough on them because he had done his homework and had their own words to throw back on them. But no one believed that Tim leaned this way or that way. He played it straight up.”
In a town of big egos and bigger ambitions, moreover, Russert was known for his lack of pretension. The son of a Buffalo garbageman, he wrote a bestselling biography, Big Russ and Me, in 2004, which chronicled his life growing up in a predominantly Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood in South Buffalo and his education at Canisius High School.
Buffalo’s mayor ordered that flags in that city be flown at half staff in his honor.
Russert was a lifelong fan of the Buffalo Bills, and also had season tickets to both Washington Wizards and Washington Nationals games.
He was married to Maureen Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, in 1983. They have a son, Luke, who recently graduated from Boston College, and who hosts the XM radio show 60/20 Sports with James Carville.
Here is Tom Brokaw’s announcement of Russert’s death on NBC:
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