As tributes to Tim Russert continue to pour in, some have turned a critical eye at the coverage:
• The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker asks, and answers, questions about journalism in general, relating it to Russert coverage. “The affection that Russert stirred in millions was testament to his skill,” he concludes. “But the coverage of his death was often overblown, self-congratulatory and self-indulgent. It was no way to treat a news icon.”
• Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Gate says the coverage of Russert is systemic of the media this year. “The Russert weekend only served to confirm my suspicion that in 2008, cable TV stations can only do one story at a time — and then they overdo it, and beat it silly,” she writes.
• Slate’s Jack Shafer describes the non-NBC coverage. “At least NBC News had an excuse for its news blindness. Russert was one of theirs,” he writes. “The other networks didn’t have that defense.”
• The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes notes viewers welcomed the coverage. “‘Hooey,’ say viewers, who watched in record numbers,” she writes. “For the full 8-to-11 p.m. prime time that night, MSNBC was up 64 percent, FNC down 11 percent and CNN up 14 percent.”
(de Moraes erroneously reports, “TVNewser called the coverage ‘NBC’s Orgy of Mourning.'” This was actually NewsBlues.)