TIM RUSSERT
(Timothy John Russert)
Russert was so angry at the Sept. 11 attack that he felt he could not maintain objectivity in reporting regarding what America’s response ought to be. Like Pearl Harbor, almost all Americans were outraged. There were probably few American journalists who did not feel anger, but with Russert’s high standards of journalistic integrity he worried about it more and expressed his concern. Ironically, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the American press & media tended not to examine administration responses with their normal cynicism and suspicion. At the time, George W, Bush, one of America’s poorest Presidents was in office, and before the media and the public looked into all the administration’s actions, the United States had gotten into what turned out to be a series of foreign policy and military quagmires, and had given $ billions worth of contracts to companies associated with the Vice President, the President’s family and others. Much of the money was never found or justified.
Timothy John Russert was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, Washington bureau chief and also hosted an eponymous CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview program. He was a frequent correspondent and guest on NBC's The Today Show and Hardball. Russert covered several presidential elections, and he presented the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey on the NBC Nightly News during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Time magazine included Russert in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. Russert was posthumously revealed as a 30-year source for syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
