Russert Watch

[From the Columbia Journalism Review]

What’s a Sunday morning show to do when it specializes in political prophecy and the expectation is a foregone conclusion? Bring some players on, ask them routine questions, register their spin, try to trip them up when the spin is ridiculous, and move on.

[From the Columbia Journalism Review]

Some viewers are probably disappointed that Tim Russert devoted only the first fifteen minutes or so of Meet the Press to l’affaire Jeremiah Wright. (That’s by my count; Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny in The New York Times came up with eighteen minutes.)...

[From the Columbia Journalism Review]

This week, Tim Russert, the national handicapper-in-chief, brought Howard Dean onto Meet the Press and tried to coax him to “focus on this unity question”—to prognosticate about the outlook for an end to the Democratic race. Dean crisply repeated what he’d already said many...

Throughout the last seven years, we've observed the very serious traditional media reacting to what many perceive as a bias of all varieties: from a liberal bias, to an anti-liberal bias, to facts proving that some reporters were actually paid to be Bush White House propagandists. According to several very...

Greetings and welcome to RussertWatch, made meta yesterday thanks to the glowing review of "Meet The Press" during the Libby trial last week, wherein former Vice-Presidential communications director Cathie Martin noted that she often suggested that Vice-President Dick Cheney go on "Meet The Press" to "control the message." From...

Greetings and welcome to RussertWatch. I know. It's been a while. As I've mentioned, I've been doing this: HuffPo's mediacentric Eat The Press, which you should all bookmark right now. Go on, I'll wait. There you go. We've had something of a revolving roster...

Good afternoon and welcome to RussertWatch. This edition is being blogged from L'Etoile du Nord of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While the rest of the country may look upon this frozen state with fond memories of Grumpy Old Men, Minnesota has become a political hotbed for the upcoming election. And at the...

Hello and welcome to Russert Watch, a day later than usual owing to a few extra "birth pangs." You know how it is. I'm Patrick Dall'Occhio, and I'm new to this beat so bear with me - I wrote this post in conjunction with frequent Russert-Watcher Rachel Sklar so if...

Hi and welcome to Russert Watch, a day late again this week with our abject apologies. Unfortunately my time for "Meet The Press" has been somewhat compromised by something far tastier: Eat The Press, HuffPo's new/month-old media page which I write and edit, and which has sadly left me...

Good morning, and welcome to a one-day late Russert Watch, which was neither Russert nor watched, as it was guest-hosted by Andrea Mitchell and turned out to have been broadcast an hour early in Canada, where I am currently spending the long weekend. Since this column is technically about watching...

Show of hands. If you watched Senator Russ Feingold on Meet the Press this morning, how many of you agree that he's the best-spoken, most lucid, toughest, most steely-eyed Democrat in Congress?

Okay, let's see some hands. Let's go. Hands up. Great! I'm seeing a lot of hands even though...

If it's Sunday, it's "Meet The Republicans" - that's how I felt when I saw that Tim's guests this week would be Condoleeza Rice - again - and two Republicans to debate immigration. Roll out the red carpet, Tim, and hand over the floor - for who better to...

Hello and welcome to another episode of Meet The Press, where hopefully God will help Tim ask the right questions. Here at RussertWatch, we pride ourselves on publishing many scary untruths. If you don't believe us, ask Tim - he knows there are untruths 'cause he doesn't read us....