Noam Scheiber: Tim Russert's Hidden Genius

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/06/13/tim-russert-s-hidden-genius.aspx

Tim Russert's Hidden Genius


Like a lot of opinion journalists, I've been known to lament Tim Russert's central place in the media cosmos. Russert elevated the gotcha question into an occasionally tedious art form, then forced us to admire his handiwork. Those of us who believe a public official can be more than the sum of his inconsistencies--or, for that matter, less than the sum of his consistencies--sometimes had trouble forgiving him this.

But you have to give Russert his due. While just about every other mass-market news organ has suffered an absolute bloodletting these last two decades, the fortunes of "Meet the Press" have moved in the opposite direction.

The program was averaging well under 3 million viewers per week when Russert took over in 1991, versus 3.5 million for the reigning colossus of the genre, ABC's "This Week." By the late '90s, however, even as competitors like Fox News materialized and broadcast-TV ratings declined overall, Russert was well above 4 million. And though his numbers sagged during the dog days of the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007, they never dipped below "This Week"'s high-water mark. More importantly, even before the viewership jolt that was this year's primary season (nearly 4.5 million viewers some Sundays), "Meet the Press" remained enormously influential in setting the weekly agenda for newspapers, magazines, and cable.

How on earth did Russert pull it off? Unlike the nightly broadcasts, which have become irrelevant in a world of ever-present headlines, and unlike cable chatter, which can be less illuminating than the lunchtime din at a moderately-selective prep school, "Meet the Press" consistently made news, a rare and precious accomplishment for an interview program--for all of television news, in fact.

Of course, the real trick is figuring out Russert's secret news-making sauce, which is slightly more complicated. A show like "Meet the Press" hinges on a delicate equilibrium: Prominent guests show up to impress its important viewers. But the important people only watch if the guests say semi-interesting things. Without the opportunity to impress all those viewers, the guests wouldn't show (at least not with the same frequency). Without the chance at some drama, the viewers wouldn't tune in (at least not in the same numbers).

Russert's ingenious solution to this problem: The gotcha. The delicious possibility of seeing a secretary of state or joint chiefs chairman get that shifty-eyed, busted-for-filching-the-homeroom-Jolly-Rancher-stash look when they contradicted an earlier pronouncement kept us watching week after week. But the questioning was rarely so probing or aggressive or unpredictable that a reasonably agile guest couldn't study his way to a passing grade.

The gotcha may have been a wearying journalistic device. But, as a strategy for getting big names in front of big audiences on a regular basis, and driving the political news cycle in a way that no other TV program could, it was a stunning success. For that, Russert deserves real credit.

--Noam Scheiber

[izquierdista]

1. Very well hidden

Timmy always looked like a big tattletale who had caught someone doing something bad and pointed it out to the whole schoolyard. However, once he unleashed his gotcha, he just gloated as though the interview was a game to be scored and he just got the points to close it out. I wish he had been more like Bill Moyers and conducted interviews that were discussions and not games. Maybe if he had given up the gotcha and been a little more laid back, he wouldn't have worked himself to an early death.

I have no doubt that St. Peter will have to admit him to the pearly gates; he probably has some gotcha questions tucked away for just such an occasion.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. He died of coronary artery disease, not overwork

And his interviews were perfect, I thought. What a drag it would be if everyone acted like Bill Moyers. God save me from derivatives and clones. Russert did his homework and didn't so much play a "gotcha" game as he did hand back to the guest his or her own words that the guest had just denied.

That's not any kind of trick. That's called "being prepared," and Russert was always prepared. That's why he was the Washington Bureau Chief, that's why he was a brilliant host of "Meet The Press" for seventeen years, that's why he was such a fine teacher.