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TechnoratiDid Tim Russert Get the Memo?
This past week, NBC completed its Green Is Universal campaign -- a week-long effort to educate and engage the public by infusing its programming with environmental themes. The effort resulted in everything from Matt Lauer reporting from the Arctic circle to Al Gore making a cameo appearance on 30 Rock parodying himself. Throughout the week, global warming was front and center. And then there was Tim Russert.
As the network's Washington Bureau Chief, Mr. Russert was surely alerted to the broadly publicized campaign. The emerald green tie he donned in Sunday's Meet the Press interview with Senator Barack Obama would seem to confirm that. But if you watched the interview, you probably noticed that Tim Russert didn't actually get the memo. Instead, Russert continued his long-running pattern of ignoring an issue that the American voters, the international community and the world's scientists have all identified as one of our most pressing challenges. Not to mention one of the most consequential.
How bad have Tim's interviews been? Over the past ten months, presidential candidates have made 16 appearances on Meet the Press. In the nearly three hundred questions he has asked the candidates, not once has he uttered the words "global warming." Not once.
At the two debates Mr. Russert has moderated, he has found time to discuss a national smoking ban, the drinking age, Bible verses, baseball, and even UFOs but not once did he ask how candidates would address the climate crisis.
His lack of coverage of the issue has been so glaring that one can only wonder whether he still needs to be convinced that global warming is a problem.
Of course, this failure is not his alone, but he is certainly the worst and most prominent example of it.
As a result, it is not surprising that the majority of the Republican candidates have coasted through the primary without having to outline any specific policies to address global warming. And while most of the Democrats have detailed plans, there has been little effort to compare their policies and gauge who is best prepared to tackle this historic challenge.
So here we are at the tail-end of an unprecedented year-long primary campaign and the media has largely failed to ask difficult and direct questions about one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced.
In light of this failure, several groups have partnered with Grist to host a presidential forum -- Global Warming & America's Energy Future -- this Saturday in Los Angeles. This will be the first event exclusively devoted to questioning the candidates on their policies and vision for tackling our growing energy problems. But with dozens more candidate forums, debates and interviews, the real question is this:
As interesting as it is to ponder whether we are alone in the universe, when on Earth will Mr. Russert cover global warming as a political issue?
Laurie David is a global warming activist and a producer of the Oscar winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". She is also the co-author of a new book "Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming" by Scholastic Press. Gene Karpinski is the President of the League of Conservation Voters, the independent political voice of the environmental movement.
Copyright © 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
18 Comments so far
Show AllMost of us have stopped watching network television with the expectation of being informed by it. Unfortunately the majority of the bovine electorate who inhabit the vast central pastures of Teletubbyland feed exclusively on that pap, and having, as they do, the swing vote that determines the future of us all, we should be concerned about what determines their "thinking" and from what source it comes.
It is more comforting, somehow, to imagine a conspiratorial scenario in which Russert and his shadowy employers are pushing an agenda, than to imagine ourselves peering over the wall into a loony bin where delusional ideas feed back upon themselves and sanity is nowhere in sight.
Most of us have stopped watching network television with the expectation of being informed by it. Unfortunately the majority of the bovine electorate who inhabit the vast central pastures of Teletubbyland feed exclusively on that pap, and having, as they do, the swing vote that determines the future of us all, we should be concerned about what determines their "thinking" and from what source it comes.
It is more comforting, somehow, to imagine a conspiratorial scenario in which Russert and his shadowy employers are pushing an agenda, than to imagine ourselves peering over the wall into a loony bin where delusional ideas feed back upon themselves and sanity is nowhere in sight.
Russert's program is not a total waste of time. I have watched it with my 11-year-old son and used it to explain the term "propaganda."
Tim is just being a good boy and going along to get along. One of the many who will not see that the king has to clothes. Denial is more than a river in Egypt, so they say.
mary lou: They never discuss DK because they are in the mind control business. The easiest mind control tactic is to ignore the issue or person. That way people will think, "They don't talk about it on TV, so it must not matter," or "Kucinich is unelectable; otherwise they would talk about him on TV."
Russert works for GE, the company that put Reagan in the White House. If they can influence the elections, why wouldn't they?
The same thing happened in '04. ABC "hosted" a debate among Democratic nominees. The first strange thing is that the debate didn't air on ABC, only on CSPAN, which gets many fewer viewers. That alone was incomprehensible. Secondly, for the first 15 minutes of the interview, Ted Koppel, employee of Disney, another exclusively Republican company, ridiculed all the nominees, except for Kerry. I got the distinct impression that Disney was trying to pick Bush's opponent.
On the other hand, I also criticize the consumers of news who have allowed news providers to become opinion providers. Even on Common Dreams, there is the design catering to people who read the news to be told what to think.
on sunday morning when i tuned in channel four, tim russert asked barack obama if it was consistent with the message of hope for him to criticize hillary clinton. seeing that there was no one on the other side of barack to make sense, i switched to channel seven, where cokie roberts and sam donaldson were reprising their old pundit role on this week.
nothing against the pundits, but why does no media authority ever discuss dennis kucinich? is there a blacklist because he makes sense? i say quit watching the national media until they act as though dennis kucinich exists and tries to get cheney impeached.
Russert lets to many answers go by that have nothing to do with the question he asked, or he lets too many answers pass without follow-up questions to satisfy the listener who is looking for substance in a response to a question. He also doesn't ask enough questions that have any substance.
When I find myself continually talking at a TV journalist because he/she is not asking the right questions, it's time to call it quits! I quit Tim Russert a long time ago.
There was a time Russert had some gumption and believability. They got to him the way they have with all the others. Not much to add here. He's just another sell-out with a BAD haircut. Get Olbermann to moderate Meet the Press! There I am...dreamin' again..........
You would think he would be more concerned, as toads like him will be the first to die off from global climate change.
Dude & Dudette: Listen up. All of yaz... Before you can change (back) the climate of a planet, you have to be able to first get control of your government and make them stop killing men, women and children.
And stop wasting your time watching that nitwit. Who actually watches those type of shows anymore, anyway?
I can't imagine anyone with a working brain wasting an hour on Sunday morning watching this clown. Who's watching? The incestuous media types--they watch each other, but nobody else does.
annabelle---I'm with you----I do not watch TV---get enough of the shit that passes for news on MSM in the mentions of it online. What a monumental waste of time.
And of course they will continue to silence ( by ridicule and marginalization) the candidtes who actually have something new and contructive to add to the conversation. We should not call them debates---they are boring, predictable conversations monopolized by the anointed frontrunners, and cheered on by their media counterparts.
The best thing the public can do is ignore them all, since they aren't saying a damned thing worth listening to, anyway, and spend a hour a night online here at CD. Much more instructive.
There is no disagreement among Democratic candidates or among Republican ones, so it's not really a differentiating issues. We know where the reds and blues stand, pretty much.
The other side to it is I think the candidates don't really want to talk about it just as much as the media doesn't want to ask about it.
When GE starts making tons of money from green business, then it will be a different story. I have no doubt in my mind that GE will find a way to make it a multi billion dollar industry for itself. It's a damned impressive company. Maybe the best in the world.
I stopped watching his info-right-slanted-tainment years ago.
He is a corporate, elitist mouthpiece.
Check out the web site: www.nonesoblind.org to get the full skinny on the pampered pundit from the vineyard.
Who continues to watch T.R. anyway? The stupidity of the UFO questions to candidates questions the stupidity of T.R. And, they keep calling these circus acts debates while sidelineing the candidates of both parties who really have a lot to offer (if they were included in the 'debate'.)
The reprehensibles won't address questions of climate change until the ice caps melt, and even then they'll blame the enviro's and the 'liberal' media for the problem. The dims might adress the question, but will waffle about doing anything to prvent the disaster, then blame the reprehensibles for the problem. Ahhh, the joys of a so-called two party state with one source of funding.
Russert is a media whore who clearly knows how to make his bosses happy. He swallows.
Hoa binh
Russert works for GE, and he knows his job description. He's meant to function as an entertainer, not a journalist.