For people who find this sort of thing urgent.
Arianna Huffington has broken her silence. And waded carefully into the speculation of who might/would/should permanently replace the late Tim Russert. Before getting into naming names, Huffington reminds everyone of how criticizing a man’s work as a journalist does not have to equal criticizing the man as a person, father, etc.
First of all, you know, my critique of Tim Russert was all about him as a journalist, not about him as a human being. So obviously, with his death, the focus has been on him as a father, a son, a Buffalo Bills supporter. But in terms of journalism, I think the need for the network will be to make sure that whoever succeeds him after Tom Brokaw’s interregnum would challenge the conventional wisdom. I think that is they key.
Huffington added, upon further prompting,”Definitely Keith Olbermann challenges the conventional wisdom.”
And, asked by TV Newser whether he’d want Russert’s job, Ted Koppel, formerly of Nightline, says “I honestly don’t know.” (Also, of his 26 years on Nightline, Koppel says that “perhaps fifty” of those 6,000 shows were “great,” which “leaves a lot of room for ‘just ok’.”)
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.