must-avoid TV “news”

Here’s the dilemma of the MSM: how do you praise Tim Russert without drawing attention to the unraveling of the newsbiz?

How do you praise him without highlighting the stark contrast between Russert’s kind of “hard news” and the laughingstock that the rest of the newsbiz has become?

Answer: you can’t, especially when reports indicate that this clown is among those being considered to fill the chair at Meet the Press.

It’s a notion that only his publicist—and the Basil Fawlty of MSNBC himself—could love.

Here’s what Russert himself had to say very recently to the New Yorker about the differences between him and Olbermann [e.a.]:

As Russert put it to me shortly before his death, “Keith and I have each carved out our roles in this vast information spectrum.” He continued, “What cable emphasizes, more and more, is opinion, or even advocacy. Whether it’s Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Lou Dobbs, that’s what that particular platform or venue does. It’s not what I do. What I do is different. I try very, very hard not to come up and say to people, ‘This is what I believe,’ or ‘This is good,’ or ‘This is bad.’ But, rather, ‘This is what I’m learning in my reporting,’ or ‘This is what my analysis shows based on my reporting.’ And as long as I can do that I’m very, very comfortable. And nobody has asked me to do anything but that.”

For once there’s a crisis that the MSM isn’t covering—and that’s the crisis in the newsbiz. Disgraced former head honcho of the NYT Howell Raines has some thoughts about that crisis (and he doesn’t even mention TV news once).