Cropping up now among the remembrances of Tim Russert (including those of Russert’s remarkably poised 22-year-old son Luke, who spoke to Matt Lauer this morning) are some “What now?” stories about NBC News’ next move.
Bob Schieffer captures for the New York Times the tough task before NBC of finding someone (some people?) to do what Russert did for the network, what the Times calls not infrequent “around-the-clock service on multiple platforms.” Per Schieffer:
They’ve got to find a moderator for Meet the Press. They’ve got to find a manager for that bureau. They’ve got to find someone who understands as much about politics as Tim does and there aren’t many people who do. They’ve got to find someone who is willing to get up in the morning and go on the Today show and do the Nightly News and then stay up late to go on MSNBC.
(“How’d you like to be the poor guy who follows him in the job?” asks the Washington Post‘s Tom Shales, noting Russert’s personal and professional reputation was such that “the plaudits and encomiums proffered by Russert’s competitors might have been even more impressive” than those from NBC colleauges.)
Focusing on the Meet the Press part of that job, the LA Times turns to “talent representatives who declined to speak on the record for fear of jeopardizing relationships with network management” for its “speculation on possible successors” and comes up with the network’s own David Gregory, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough (with longer shots including Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and Keith Olbermann).
The New York Times pronounces “the list of potential names to assume the moderator role on Meet the Press is already well known” (Brian Williams, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and Keith Olbermann.)
Andrew Tyndall suggests to Politico’s Michael Calderone a “short list” including Gregory, Mitchell, Matthews, and political director Chuck Todd, adding Joe Scarborough and Tom Brokaw as “dark-horse candidates.”
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.