Tim Russert is a Dead Man

Tim Russert of NBC's 'Meet the Press' dies

I have since evolved into an accomplished student of literature, but when I first set foot onto a college campus (and for the subsequent 1.5 years thereafter) I was a student of journalism. Who, what, where, when and why were of great concern to me. So with Tim Russert passing away today, the Communications Minor in me mourns.

I'm pretentious; I like to support the theory that things that are inherently boring -- Leo Tolstoy, National Public Radio, bran flakes, C-SPAN, etc., etc. -- are also inherently entertaining. More often that not, I'm full of it -- War and Peace is a thousand pages too long; anything on NPR outside of David Sedaris' episodes of This American Life and the daily "celebrity birthday" reminders puts me to sleep; bran flakes are only edible with raisins and sugary sweet oat clusters; and C-SPAN shouldn't be allowed on television at all. But Meet the Press truly is one of those rare examples of something being good for you (it was educational and informative) and enjoyable (it was also witty and engaging).

Unlike Bill O'Reilly and other fellow talking head caricatures -- for the record, I do like The O'Reilly Factor a lot -- Russert never had to resort to fear-mongering, sensationalism, or grand-standing to keep viewers tuned in. The secret to his success was simply quality journalism. He built an entire career based primarily on honesty, cool-headed rationale, steady persistence, understated adamancy, and plain old likability.

It might be another station's tagline, but he actually was fair and balanced. And the good kind of bipartisanship, too; open-minded enough to consider both sides of a story, but hard-hitting enough to call someone out on their bullshit.

Whenever someone is universally renowned and respect, the way Russert is, that usually means one of two things: they're either extraordinarily great or extraordinarily average. The former is apropos here.

As it turns out, I feel more affected by Russert's passing today than I did by Bo Diddley's passing a couple weeks ago. I'm a little surprised by that.

And I've purposely avoided making any single blog entry of mine overly sentimental, so for fear of this one getting too sappy, I'll end it on a defiantly sobering note: the Buffalo Bills suck. Russert could've lived for another 100 years and they'd never win a Super Bowl. Scott Norwood watched Meet the Press every Sunday morning.