After Tim Russert: Meet The Press with...?

So, the speculation has begun, as to who will replace Tim Russert, both as Moderator of Meet The Press, and as Washington Bureau Chief.  Much like Spud over at Inside Cable News, I think the roles will go to two different people.

I will concentrate on the on-air role of Meet The Press host, rather than the Washington Bureau Chief role.  So who do I think might be the next host?

Brit Hume - Host of Special Report on Fox News Channel and panelist on Fox News Sunday.  Also Washington Managing Editor for Fox News.  More likely for Washington Bureau Chief, but an outside chance for Meet The Press.

Bob Schieffer - Chief Washington Correspondent for CBS News and Anchor of Face The Nation.  Has just signed a new long term deal, so unlikely to move from CBS.

George Stephanopolus - ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent.  Not considered a likely successor. 

Gwen Ifill - Senior Correspondent at PBS Newshour and moderator of Washington Week on PBS.  She spent 5 years at NBC before moving to PBS.  She could be one of the dark horses who actually might be a great choice.

Gordon Peterson - Anchor at WJLA and host of Inside Washington.  Another dark horse who could do a very good job.

Andrea Mitchell - A senior Washington correspondent at NBC News and looks the favourite to my eyes.  Would be as big a story as Katie Couric anchoring the CBS Evening News.

David Gregory - Senior White House Correspondent for NBC News.  Another favourite in the eyes of the media, though has his own MSNBC show and no immediate replacement seems likely.

Joe Scarborough - Host of MSNBC's Morning Joe.  Longtime host on MSNBC, perhaps a little too opinionated for Meet The Press.  Outside shot.

Chris Matthews - Host of Hardball on MSNBC.  Has long been seen as natural successor, but could be too opinionated and loud for Meet The Press.  Other factors against include talk of a possible run for the Senate in 2010.

Keith Olbermann - Host and Managing Editor of Countdown on MSNBC.  Can't see him moving across to Washington.  Also, too opinionated.  Factor in his favour though is he is seen as ratings gold currerntly on Countdown.  Still an outside shot for the show.

Tom Brokaw - Special Correspondent for NBC News and former anchor of NBC Nightly News.  Anchored the special edition of Meet The Press paying tribute to Tim Russert.  Has the style and gravitas to make the show work, but not certain whether he would want to commit to a regular weekly show.  Still, a good each way bet.

Chuck Todd - Political Director at NBC News.  Has only recently become more of a presence in front of the camera, mostly works behind the scenes.  More likely for Washington Bureau Chief than Meet The Press.

So, to summarise, I think it will either be Andrea Mitchell, Gwen Ifill or Gordon Peterson who will host, with Tom Brokaw as a good each way bet.  Certainly there are other possibilities, such as Judy Woodroffe, longtime CNN anchor and now spreads her time between the PBS Newshour and Bloomberg, or Dan Rather, who was famously sacked from the CBS Evening News, and now hosts Dan Rather Reports on HDNet, but none of these people or the tons of others I could list, seem to be a good fit for Meet The Press.

I look forward to finding out who will become Moderator on Meet The Press.  And as Tim used to say, "If it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press."

Tim Russert: 1950-2008

My first media encounter with Tim Russert was when NBC Super Channel arrived onto Astra 1 in 1995.  At the time, I knew nothing about what an American television network did.  So, NBC Super Channel was my first introduction to the world of American television networks. 

Meet The Press was something new to me.  A Sunday morning "Public Affairs" programme.  We had had Sunday morning political shows in the UK, but the term "Public Affairs" was new and confusing.  And whilst that confusion has lifted, I gained a respect for Tim and his love of politics.

For me, it has always been Meet The Press with Tim Russert, from NBC Super Channel to CNBC Europe, and then later to a downloadable podcast.  Meet The Press with Tim Russert was always a regular appointment.

The news of his death, is, quite understandably, a shock.  He was a consumate professional, a brilliant interviewer, and a wealth of knowledge and experience, almost encyclopedic, of the Washington political scene.

But more than that, Tim Russert shared his roots, his background with all of us, and you saw and felt just where he came from.  He was an "everyman" with the razor sharp lawyer's intellect. and the insights of someone who worked inside the Washington political machine, but never lost his grounding in what was real, what mattered outside the bubble of Washington politics.

As a journalist, he's an inspiration.  As a person, he couldn't have been more balanced.  Journalism has lost a real pro, and humanity has lost an everyman.  Tim Russert was just 58.

Viewpoint Extra: Is it time for Hillary to step aside?

In a follow up to my previous post about Hillary Clinton's presdiential campaign, two stories to bring you. The first comes from NBC's Today show where Andrea Mitchell reports on the differences between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.



Whilst Huffington Post reports that Hillary's husband, former President Bill Clinton, has switched his allegence from his wife to Barack Obama.

I'm afraid I hear The Dead March being played at Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters.

NBC Nightly News: New Studio

As an interested news listener and viewer, I watched this first edition of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams from the rebuilt NBC News World Headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, with more than the usual degree of interest.

Like many othersI had seen the preview images released on various blogs, but basically, I didn't have a clue how the set would look on screen. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the things I saw.

In some ways, the new anchor desk is unique, being L-shaped. This gives you two views of the anchor desk, one with a giant screen as a backdrop, not unlike ABC News, and the other has the newsroom as a backdrop, which is somewhat reminiscent of many 24 hour news channels around the world.

The fact that it reminds me of so many studios in varying ways, rather than any one particular studio, highlights the fact that rather than trying to deliberately copy any other studio, they have tried to do something different, but with elements that are familiar to everyone.

So, do I think the studio looks good? Oh yes, very definitely. They've managed to achieve something that looks different, stylish, practical, reminiscent and distinctive, whilst avoiding being copycat. They've also managed to avoid trying to look too modern, whilst also avoiding looking too staid. It's a difficult balancing act to pull off, but they have managed it, somehow.

Personally, I can't wait for the usual pro-FOX brigade of comment contributors to Inside Cable News to put their usual pro-FOX / anti liberal media spin on this studio. Granted, it's not a studio you would expect to see a FOX News programme, it's too stylish and classy for that. Fox News studios tend to be a bit more in your face than other news studios. This NBC Nightly News studio is almost understated, which actually helps to take the attention off the studio set and onto the stories themselves.

I would give this 9 out of 10.

Is NBC News being tabloidy or being responsible?

There has been a lot of criticism aimed at NBC News for airing the video sent to them by Cho-seeung Hui, the student who killed 31 people at Virginia Tech, before committing suicide.

Some of it came from more predictable sources, such as Accuracy In Media, whilst others have been less expected. Media Bistro's TV Newser reported some of the other sources.

Whilst I have some sympathy for the view that we shouldn't be giving publicity to these people, I also believe that we as a society need to understand what motivates these people to do what they do.

I can also understand the criticism that this kind of coverage is tabloidy and irresponsible. However, I would answer this by asking a question. What is responsible journalism?

Is it responsible to only cover stories and angles that we as a society, country or group of individuals feel safe in covering, or should we actively be covering stories and angles that do make us feel uncomfortable?

I would argue that it is essential that we do cover angles to these stories that do take us out of ouor comfort zones, and make us face up to things that we dislike. In fact, to actively avoid these angles because of this, would in my view be very irresponsible. You would have to handle these angles with tact and discretion and avoid sensationalising it. But you should cover them.

Was NBC right to air the video? Ultimately yes, but did they handle it right? Well, I'm not sure. Perhaps they could have handled it better, but they could have handled it a lot worse as well.

Editorialising The News.

I would call myself something of a news junkie. I like to tune in to various news sources to get different perspectives on the news. This is a way of really getting a purer, more factual perspective on the news.

But it is also a way of learning which news sources you can trust, and which ones try to influence your opinions. The Sun, like most if not all newspapers, tries to influence your thoughts. Take the story of the shootings at Virginia Tech University. When the student Cho Seung-hui sent his video package to NBC News in New York between the shootings, The Sun reported it this way...

"...MASSACRE madman Cho Seung-Hui sent a chilling message to TV chiefs after slaying his first two victims."

Now, let me highlight in red, the words that are not necessary to tell the story.

"...MASSACRE madman Cho Seung-Hui sent a chilling message to TV chiefs after slaying his first two victims."

Now, if you read ONLY the light coloured words, the story still makes sense, but is nowhere near as dramatic, and is not nearly as full of hyperbole. The full version reads like an old fashioned newspaper hack's writing style. Now contrast this to the BBC's reporting of the same story.

"...The student who shot dead at least 30 people at Virginia Tech sent a package to the US TV network NBC News on the day of the shootings, police said."

Now, on that, there is one piece that stands out to me as being wrong and that is having the words "...police said..." at the end of the sentence, rather than at the beginning. It reads better the other way, but apart from that, there is almost nothing there in that sentence that doesn't need to be there to tell the story.

So, why do newspaper articles add all these extra words? Mainly it's to reinforce an editorial standpoint on the story. They really want you to think a certain way, they want to create a certain political atmosphere.

Another good example of this was the way the printed media created a political atmosphere, was when the sailors and marines who had been captured by Iran came home, they were allowed to sell their stories by the Ministry of Defence.

Those newspapers who didn't manage to get a story from the former captives, criticised the papers that did. Now this in itself was not unusual, this happens every time. But there was a greater backlash, because other elements of the media, including broadcasters and bloggers, got in on the act as well. The next day, the newspapers that had taken stories from the marines, got in on the same act as the others!

Yet none of them considered that Iran had started this with the videos they had put out showing the sailors and marines 'confessing their guilt'. The Ministry of Defence was always going to allow the sailors and marines to tell their story and always looked like it would, just this once, allow the stories to be sold to newspapers, in order to counter the propoganda being put out by Iran.

I seem to be the only person who thought that this was not a great idea, but had to be done. Everybody else I spoke to, took the critical line that the media portrayed.

In the past few years, a lot of the mainstream media, and a number of bloggers, have criticised Arabic 24 hour news channel Al-Jazeera, for showing the videos that some suicide bombers have sent to them. Newshounds, the anti-Fox News website, made a great point recently about how much the mainstream media in the US had criticised Al-Jazeera for doing what NBC had done on their "NBC Nightly News" programme on Wednesday 18th April 2007.

The media can be that hypocritical sometimes. As bloggers, some of us too have been hypocritical, especially those who promote a political viewpoint. I like to keep my views consistent, and when my views change, I will need to be able to communicate to you, the reader, why my views have changed. I will aim to report, as much as I editorialise, and I hope that I can make a clear link between the facts, and my editorial opinion.