Can anyone sum up why a lot of DU'ers dont like Tim Russert?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

i would post this in GD but i am not in a fighty type of mood.

edit: for honesty i should add that i have been watching MTP for about a year and i enjoy it. i think he is equally hard/soft on dems and repubs. however the time period i have been watching him in coincides with the time the repubs haven't enjoyed much popularity.

[Genevieve]

1. i hate him. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. why?

[Genevieve]

6. TR is a White House Hack

Instead of reporting research and facts he reports 'what sells' and his right-wing opinion.

[Genevieve]

9. He softballs questions to Repukes

and smacks down Democrats/Liberals.

[SarahB]

3. He just seems like another corporate tool.

I have a hard time with corporate tools.

[zabet]

4. He antagonistically

attacks dems and soft-balls the repukes. He is
a GE corporate butt-plug.

[taterguy]

5. He spends too much time at Olive Garden of course

A more serious answer is that he's not close enough to people's ideology, which is no surprise since he works for a major network and his whole act is based on getting people in power to talk to him.

If he was more "pure", he
a) Wouldn't be on TV in the first place
b) Wouldn't have any people in positions of authority willing to come on his show

[AlCzervik]

7. His father "Big Russ", Tim actually gave him that nickname.

i think that speaks to what he's all about, was his Dad sans that nickname not good enough for him?

[Hand]

8. Insh'Allah. nt

[taterguy]

10. Here ya go, just lurk, no need to reply

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2259192&mesg_id=2259192

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. lol. thanks

[taterguy]

12. Ordinarily I charge big bucks for that service but I'm in a generous mood

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=7118333&mesg_id=7118333

[Writer]

13. Because we read in him what we assume the media to be: conservative-leaning...

however we never give much credit to our own leanings when assessing bias in media. We believe ourselves to be unvarnished assessors of news product and that is false.

FUCK Noam Chomsky.

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. I've never read Chomsky

but I had a thought quite similar to that one a few minutes ago in GD regarding the line, "But, as usual, AP puts lipstick on the pig."

No one who has an agenda is qualified to be an arbiter of bias. There's an enormous difference between "I don't agree with this" and "This is incorrect," but many at DU fail to recognize the distinction because to do so wouldn't suit their own views.

[Writer]

25. Bless you!

I could KISS you!

:*

For this reason we need media literacy programs in our public education system. If there is one thing harming democracy right now, it is our inability to understand and to process media messages so that we can properly inform ourselves.

[Oeditpus Rex]

27. Media literacy and critical thinking

The damned thing of it is, the right-wingers read and watch pretty much the same things we do, with a few exceptions such as the Faux Noise "Some say liberals eat babies" meme. But that's opinion in the guise of news — and, again, too few people have the critical thinking skills to discern the difference, or they simply don't care to because it's easier and more fun to just rip away.

They also pick out perceived "buzz words" in a news story to use as examples of why a reporter or newspaper — or medium as a whole — is biased, and that evolves into such things as "So-and-so is a propaganda arm of the BFEE."

I don't know who came up with "Truth has a liberal bias," but it's utter crap meant to make our side sound like it holds the higher moral ground.

Truth has no bias.

[Writer]

33. "Truth has a liberal bias"

That was Stephen Colbert, actually. :P

[vi5]

43. I understand what you're saying...

..but the "Truth has a liberal bias" is a statement more of this time when the media does report things that are not in the least bit factual, and then present this as balance. There are many more examples out there of them doing this to quell conservative complaints than liberal ones. So no, truth doesn't have a bias or a right/left tinge. But you would never know that from today's media.

[From The Ashes]

47. ...

"It is a common mistake of 21st century journalism to assume that 'fairness' entails hitting everyone equally hard. That is not fairness. Fairness means applying the same standards to everyone and hitting whoever violates those standards."

[jpgray]

14. Did you catch his 2000 election interviews of Bush and Gore?

Gore got raked over the coals for all the bogus "liar" stories we know and love, and I think Bush was mostly asked about baseball. I never regained my respect for Russert after that. He has his good days and bad days, journalism-wise.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. no, only starting watching him since aug 06.

[vi5]

16. My take is that on initial questions he's not horrible...

His initial questions to both Dems and Repubs tend to be about on par with each other with regard to straightforwardness and hard hittingness.

However he has a tendency to not follow up as vigorously with republicans and doesn't counter their spin with as much force and tenacity as he does with Democrats. Also a lot of his questions are framed around beltway conventional wisdom terms which more often than not tend to lean towards republican talking point.

I don't think he's as big a tool as many on DU make him out to be but he's highly, highly flawed.

[cuke]

19. Yeah, it's a subtle difference

He is very shallow. Disingenously so. He repeats the beltay conventional wisdom as if it were gospel and because he is considered liberal, he reinforces the idea that the right wing memes emanating from DC are accurate descriptions of what's going on.

He also has a tendency to go after dems over character issues, while rarely calling the rightwing on their character. And his idea of objectivity is to assume both sides are of equal import, even if one side says the Earth is round, and the other side says the it's flat

[ashling]

17. He asks stupid questions

He badgers his interviewees on some stupid point by asking the same thing over and over and over rather than trying to get the information by some other line of questioning or by leaving it alone to actually get some intellegent discussion or exchange of ideas- this is not hard hitting journalism, it is just annoying. He's looking for gotchas and clips that will make it onto the other shows. This goes for all of his interviews on the whole, not just liberals or conservatives. This is not an incisive interviewing style, it is what reporters for the high school newspaper do.

Correction, I have seen a lot of high school reporting which is much more incisive and illuminating.

Plus, if I hear one more idiotic comment about the Buffalo Bills or some stupid thing that Big Russ says I will explode.

I grew up watching Mee the Press every Sunday back when it was actually members of the press that did the interviewing. This is not Meet the Press, it is Lets talk about football with Big Russ's anoying little gotch kid.

However, I do not pretend to speak for any other DUer. Tose are just my opinions.

Oh, did I mention that he is just not very interesting and asks stupid questions?

[tigereye]

18. i used to respect him more

but it seems like he isn't really interested in substantive interviewing - or he gets stuck on some gotcha points...

to be fair, I haven't seen him in a while...


I prefer Jim Lehrer on PBS....

[UTUSN]

20. Because...

1) He *is* harder on Dems than Rethugs, lets Rethugs get away with BAD BAD stuff.


2) He was one of ours, a Dem operative, but now appears to be theirs.

3) He was the first to give LIMBOsevic an opening into the mainstream, hosting him for a few years for an hour long interview that aired each year over the long Thanksgiving holiday with repetitions.

4) His "openness" to wingnuts appears to have come about from the very "bleeding heart liberality" when he got deeper into being a media player, listening to "both" sides, looking for fresh angles from unlikely sources. Iow, he began to give a break to wingnuts from the premise that they really are goodhearted people who had been maligned and marginalized for a generation or more.

5) Or 4.5, GREED made him open up to wingnuts.

6) That Shrub '00 button under his lapel. Has he ever denied it?

7) He lost his roots and became jaded and cynical.


I fear I've gone beyond a summary...

[UTUSN]

39. So much for us lurking-GD/ers in the Lounge!1 n/t

[Fleshdancer]

21. perhaps I'm just too biased, but....

it appears to me that Russert relies heavily on "gotcha" type questions when interviewing Democrats while asking the obvious questions to Republicans. The only time I can recall a "gotcha" statement to a pub is when Bush was quizzed on the global leaders before the 2000 election but I may be wrong on who interviewed him at the time. I think it was Russert, but I'm too lazy to google it right now.

Another issue I have is the way he sets up some of his questions by creating a false statement and then requiring a politician to answer it. He's the master at creating strawman arguments. For example, his long comment during the debate regarding the speed at which the Clinton papers are released. In these situations, I don't know what frustrates me more...Russert for asking it or the politicians for thinking they have to play his game.

[Gonzo Gardener]

23. He's a GOP talking potato head shill.

And..that's the facts, Ma'am!

:rant:

[yardwork]

24. Because he's an asshole?

[SoCalDem]

26. Mr Potato-head is a wishy-washy journalist like the rest of them

His "show" is about HIM..and HIS books and his ideas.. He does not challenge his guests equally.

[Orsino]

28. He spends at least thrice the time in the make-up chair...

...as he does in any sort of "research" for his stories. He doesn't do his homework before interviewing, and it shows. On top of that, of course, there's the usual corporate slant.

[Poiuyt]

29. “Integrity is for paupers!”

In 1992, shortly after being named moderator of Meet The Press, Tim Russert was having lunch with a broadcast executive. The mealtime conversation was about the pros and cons of working for General Electric’s NBC subsidiary. Russert expounded on how being employed by GE had brought him to the realization that things functioned better when Republicans were in charge.

“You know, Tim, you used to be such a rabid Democrat when you worked for Pat Moynihan,” said the executive. “But now that you’ve gotten a glimpse of who’s handing out the money in this business, you’ve become quite the Jaycee. Were you wrong about everything you used to believe so strongly?”

“I still believe,” Russert said, leaning across the table. “I believe in everything I ever did. But I also know that I never would have become moderator on Meet The Press if my employers were uncomfortable with me. And, given the amount of money at stake, millions of dollars, I don’t blame them. This is business.”

The executive agreed. “But are you concerned about losing yourself? You know, selling out?”

Russert pounded the table. “Integrity is for paupers!”

more -

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/podvin/media/020109_Russert.htm

[triguy46]

30. He's a butt:

1. He tends to love the one he's with.
2. Master of the softball question
3. He gets sucked into shit like did hillary tip.
4. He's a butt.

[triguy46]

31. the talking heads of the MSM are too well paid, spend too much time...

hanging out and drinking with those they cover. They are afraid of losing their place at the table and the $500K paycheck. Of course they pretend to ask a hard question occassionally, but they never work to land a fish, or uncover a story.

If you are paid that much and spend that much time with those you 'cover' you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[bigwillq]

32. Didn't he get caught

showing off a Bush button he was wearing under his suit jacket? :shrug:

I thought someone posted a link about that during the 2004 GE.

I guess Tim was at some dinner and he was talking to some repuke and then he pull off his jacket a bit to reveal the button. Anybody remember this or can verify this is true?

[Clintonista2]

34. Yup, I remember that. nm.

[Kat45]

35. Instead of asking a substantive question, he asked Kucinich about UFOs

Gee, I wonder why he asked that question. :sarcasm:

[Hand]

36. Self delete--dupe

I already posted my annoying "Insh'Allah. nt" :rofl:

[Akoto]

37. I have an ongoing feud with the russet potato, and his name is too close. n/t

[Aristus]

38. You mean, other than the fact that he's a right-wing tool?

n/t

[Lindsey]

40. He's a total asshole who completely kisses up and asks meaningless

questions to the Repugs. and goes after the Dems viciously. The questions he asks, his voice tonality, and his body language when he's interviewing a Democrat are brutal in a subliminal way. I got so disgusted that I haven't watched this joke of a journalist in two years.

[SoxFan]

41. I'm with you on this one

Of all the network talking heads, Russert usually seems to be the best prepared and one of the few who attempts to interject some fairness into the discussion.

Maybe he overcompensates at times. The guy is a lifelong Democrat. Hell, he was a speech writer for Mario Cuomo.

[meegbear]

42. He's a douchebag

QED

[Beer Snob-50]

44. i personally like to watch mtp

tr i find to be a fair journalist. he does his homework usually and i find him to be equally hard on both parties.

[NewJeffCT]

45. He throws like a girl!

just kidding - bringing up memories of a very old flame war.

But, Russert seems to do the "gotcha" sort of question of people with odd questions that are often not very important or relevant.

[DeaconBlues]

46. When he tried to make Hillary apologize for her husband's infidelity

during one of the NY Senate debates let me know all I needed to know about this right-wing asshole.

[jonnyblitz]

48. i always hated it when he had james carville and mary matlin on

his show at the same time. he always treated them like they were the god and goddess of Washington DC and he acted like he was just the grooviest of hosts for having them because of the novelty of one being a DEM operative and one being a GOP operative and (giggle/wink) they were (gasp) MARRIED!! :eyes: To me he epitomizes the ultimate establishment DC insider out of touch with mainstream america who is looking for that "gotcha" moment when he interviews people just to make headlines.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

49. hey you!!

:hi:

[mitchum]

50. He's a Beltway flunky who is proud that he hauls big rocks for the Pharaoh

makes him feel important

[Z_I_Peevey]

51. He's a potato-faced corporate tool.

There you go.