printThe coverage of Tim Russert’s untimely death is obscene. Can you imagine the BBC lamenting for days on end the passing of one of their broadcasters, or even the head of the BBC network? Never. It would not happen. You’d hear a curt, solemn announcement to the effect that, “Our colleague has passed away tragically. We mourn his death and extend our condolences to his family. Now to the news of the day.”
This pathological coverage, once again, is of a piece with the childish, self-centered, deeply silly American media, which knows not what its proper mandate is. Has such impropriety afflicted the national psyche? You tell me. I suspect most Americans are preoccupied with other matters. I hope so.
Mature, normal people know when to grieve, how publically, how loudly, and how long. When the president of the US pauses, on an official visit abroad, to declare to the world how sad he is about the death of a man his audience doesn’t know—you know what a naval-gazing nation we’ve become.
This kind of coverage applies with spades to the elections: Since 2007, cable networks have focused exclusively on the elections to the exclusion of most other new and certainly world news.
As I asked in “Elections Fatigue”: “America’s pathological, election-time self-absorption makes a mockery of the idea that the US is suited to lead the world. Shouldn’t a world leader take an interest in the world?”
I suspect that Mr. Russert would have been appalled by the choice of broadcasting his colleagues have made.
“Has such impropriety afflicted the national psyche? You tell me.”
Some students were asked why they went to journalism school. Their answer? “To change the world.”
You are correct Ilana, the US is self-obsessed. It must be our geographic isolation and relative material success. The great irony is that we appear to be abandoning the things that made us successful: individual liberty, limited government etc.
I don’t watch TV, so my only exposure to Russert’s form of journalism was his “interview” with Ron Paul last December. “Hatchet job” would have been a better description. Clearly the man had an agenda, and it was to delegitimize Paul at all costs.
I always thought journalism was intended to unearth facts and convey them with minimal bias. If Russert is being eulogized as a great journalist, I’d hate to see what average journalists are like.
[Thanks for this reality check.–IM]
I’m not familiar with the phrase, “navel-gazing”. What does that mean? [I’m sure you have Google.]
I’ve re-seen part 1 of the 4 part interview with Ron Paul. Tim is a tough interviewer. So far he has not avoided eye contact. Here is a wonderful thing about Ron Paul: His world view is consistent and well thought out. No amount of tough but fair questioning can embarrass him. Ron knows what he thinks and why. So far I can allow that Tim is just playing a tough devil’s advocate.
Steve Stip,
Look at the exchange between Russert and Paul over the Civil War and slavery. According to the brilliant Mr. Russert, had we not fought that destructive war and practically ruined our country in the process, it would still be dominated by slave owners to this day! I swear, that’s what the guy said on national television.
When one is attempting to smear an individual, no amount of absurdity is too extreme.
I see some of the modern navel-gazing in the curricula of my daughter (who is at a private school but it just apes the mainstream governmental PC education). They don’t teach a damn thing about world geography but while they teach her trivialities about wars but not about the countries where the wars were fought. They probably spend 30% of history and literature now on the black American experience. All the latest fads – to fixate on.
Do you recall the orgy of grief for “John-John” Kennedy a few years back? Or the endless coverage of Natalie Holloway, Chandra Levy, and similar women who disappeared mysteriously? The media elevates something into prominence and it becomes a self-generating story. The ultimate poster person of this Navel-Gazing, however, was not American but was “Princess Di” – an anorexic mediocrity whose claim to fame was marrying some doofus “Prince”. I once remarked that “Princess Di gets more coverage than the entire nation of Indonesia” only to find that 6 months after she died, Suharto was overthrown – maybe the Indonesians finally found out what was going on in their own country!
[Or as I called her here, “that dodo Diana…”–IM]