Tim Russert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timothy John Russert, Jr. (born May 7, 1950) is an American journalist who has hosted NBC's Meet the Press since 1991. He is the Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News, and hosts Tim Russert, a weekly interview program on CNBC. He is also a frequent correspondent and guest on other NBC News programs, such as The Today Show and Hardball. He co-hosts the network's presidential Election Night coverage. He also presents the polling results of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey on the NBC Nightly News alongside the anchor of the show.

1 Biography
2 Notes
3 Further reading
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in Buffalo, New York to Irish American Catholic parents, Russert is an alum of Canisius High School in Buffalo, New York and a graduate of John Carroll University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. He is admitted to the bar in New York and the District of Columbia. Before joining NBC News, Russert served as counselor in New York Governor Mario Cuomo's office in Albany in 1983 to 1984 and was chief of staff to Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1977 to 1982. An avid fan of the American Football team the Buffalo Bills, Russert usually closes Sunday broadcasts during the football season with some type of pro-Bills comment. He has also ended his show by mentioning the successes of Boston College football and basketball. With the recent success of the Buffalo Sabres, he has also begun to show tribute to the Sabres at the close of some shows. When the Sabres lost Game 7 of the 2006 Eastern Conference Finals, Russert looked into the camera and heartfully said, thank you Buffalo Sabres for a wonderful season.

[edit] Career

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

During NBC's coverage of the 2000 US Presidential Election he calculated possible electoral college outcomes on a marker board on the air, accurately predicting in advance that the election would hinge on "Florida, Florida, Florida." Four years later, Russert would again accurately predict the final battleground of the presidential elections: "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio." He often moderates political debates.

The marker board is a recurring theme on election nights.

[edit] Personal life

Tim Russert’ recent book, Wisdom of Our Fathers

In 2004, Russert penned a bestselling biography, Big Russ and Me, which chronicled his life growing up in a predominantly Irish working-class neighborhood in South Buffalo as well as his education at Canisius High School. Russert's father, a World War II veteran held down two jobs after the war, conveyed to his young son, through the methods of the "carrot and the stick," the importance of maintaining strong family values, the reverence of faith, and of never taking a short cut to reach a goal. He claimed to have received over 60,000 letters from people in response to the book, detailing their own experiences with their fathers.^{[citations needed]} In 2005 he released Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons, a collection of some of these letters, which also became a bestseller.^{[citations needed]}

While in law school, an official from his alma mater, John Carroll University, called Tim to ask if he could book some concerts for the school as he had done while a student. Tim agreed, but said he would need money to do it because he was running out of money to pay for law school. One concert that Tim booked was headlined by a then-unknown singer, Bruce Springsteen, who nevertheless charged $2,500 for the concert appearance. Tim told this story to Jay Leno when he was a guest on the The Tonight Show on NBC on June 6, 2006.^{[citations needed]}

Russert appeared briefly in a scene on the television drama Homicide as himself. On that show, one of the fictional characters, Megan Russert, was his cousin. Russert also appeared on the game show What Would You Do?

Tim Russert is married to Maureen Orth, who has been a special correspondent for Vanity Fair since 1993. They have a son, Luke, who attends Boston College and hosts the XM radio show 60/20 Sports with James Carville.

[edit] Ongoing CIA leak scandal

Scooter Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that Russert was the first to tell him of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency agent Valerie Plame (Mrs. Joseph C. Wilson). Russert testified previously and again in United States v. I. Lewis Libby that he did not tell Libby of Mrs. Wilson's CIA identity.

Russert testified again in the trial on Wednesday, February 7, 2007.

During the trial, another witness, former Cheney communications director Cathie Martin, testified that she "suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,'" hosted by Russert on NBC, and that it was "a tactic we often used....It's our best format."^[1]