The New Republic’s Noreen Malone writes about Luke Russert…
NBC brass is rather protective of Russert. When we had lunch, the network sent a minder to sit in on the meeting—not a typical procedure for someone with mid-level name recognition, and particularly unusual for a journalist in the business of asking difficult questions of others. MSNBC has (idly) threatened to dock airtime for writers at publications who have criticized him. Russert doesn’t exactly rebel against their protection. When I emailed him directly with some follow-up questions, the publicist replied instead.
It’s not just his bosses. The Washington of This Town loves Russert. In college, Russert did a Sirius sports radio show with James Carville. He splits his Wizards season tickets with CNN’s John King. And when I wondered whether there was anyone who’d been a particular help professionally, it wasn’t NBC segment producers’ names that tripped off his tongue first. “Tom Brokaw has just been a wonderful mentor,” said Luke. “I’ve never really thought of him as an NBC person because I grew up with him being around the house. … Tom Brokaw, not anchor of NBC news, but just Tom Brokaw, has been great.”
There were others: “Professionally, Chuck Todd’s been wonderful,” Luke continued. “Bob Schieffer is great. Gwen Iffil has always been good with advice for me and giving me helpful things to say.” He has an especially jocular relationship with Speaker John Boehner, who, when Russert asked him on Valentine’s Day what the speaker had gotten his wife for the holiday, replied, “Same thing I got you, honey,” and blew Russert a kiss.
To be a pet and acolyte of the older generation’s establishment figures doesn’t exactly endear him to his contemporaries. If there is a “mayor” of his generation’s Washington, it is the careful Ezra Klein, who, as his own MSNBC career began to take off, reached out to Russert after his father’s death to make amends for a much-quoted crude tweet he’d written about Tim Russert (which Klein said was taken wildly out of context). Russert was not receptive. “I do not have a professional or social relationship with Ezra Klein,” he told me (through the aforementioned spokesperson) when I asked about the exchange.
Filed under: MSNBC
