The death of Tim Russert has become a huge media story on the level of Britney Spears leaving rehab early. Now, Russert may have been a good family man and nice to those he knew personally (although I have my doubts after the way he was one of the first to call for the head of his supposed friend Don Imus after the Rutgers joke), however, in my opinion the praise for him as a journalist is unwarranted. Take a close look at his interview (see here, here, here, and here) with Ron Paul and it becomes clear that he has no journalistic interest the importance of the revolution only trivial matters designed to tear it down. Tim Russert was not a great reporter he was a staunch defender of the status quo and that is where his success came from. If he had been Russian and born a bit earlier he would have fit in well at Brezhnev’s Pravda.

Over at LewRockwell.com Butler Schaffer has posted a very eloquent essay putting Tim Russert’s passing and the copious attention paid to it into perspective. Butler concludes by suggesting that, ”at a time when newspapers and weekly news magazines are experiencing major circulation declines, and television news is losing viewers – all to the benefit of more free, open, and responsive Internet reporting – the mainstream media is struggling for its very existence. There may be a metaphorical message in the untimely death of television news’ most visible personage. Like those who gather to celebrate the life and death of a friend, perhaps the mainstream media is using the memory of Tim Russert to celebrate its own life, which seems now to be in a terminal state.”

Hat tip to Kenny Rodgers