Tim Russert Can't Handle the Truth
Brian Oberkirch lambasts Tim Russert for doing gotcha journalism on Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in Lousiana. Russert replayed a tape of Broussard's appearance on Russert's show on three weeks ago and interrogated him about the precise dates on which a friend called his mother's nursing home and whether the 92-year-old woman drowned on August 29 or Sept 2. Part of Broussard's response:Listen, sir, somebody wants to nitpick a man's tragic loss of a mother because she was abandoned in a nursing home? Are you kidding? What kind of sick mind, what kind of black-hearted people want to nitpick a man's mother's death? They just buried Eva last week. I was there at the wake. Are you kidding me? That wasn't a box of Cheerios they buried last week. That was a man's mother whose story, if it is entirely broadcast, will be the epitome of abandonment.Here's some of what Brian says:
Here's a new way to think about blogging and all forms of consumer generated media: forget fact checking [your] ass. That's a parlor game for grad students and professional cynics. Yes, you caught some high-profile folks screwing up. Good on you. We're frying bigger fish now, and you can't play with us if you haven't got the emotional heft. I've seen do-it-yourself media help us reconnect as human beings. Help one another as individuals in need. Answer a calling to the better parts of ourselves. That's where I'm putting my energy. My hope is that whenever someone like Aaron Broussard utters a lamentation that has to be heard, that we'll broadcast it to the four corners and find someone who can help, right away.In this case, it was worse than a parlor game. It was an ambush. It was an attempt to discredit the story's teller in order to deny the story's meaning. It was contemptible. And, Brian points out, it didn't help that Russert consistently mispronounced the drowned woman's name.
There are facts that matter and facts that don't matter. But truths are truths. Russert is such a slave to his conservative masters that he can't see the difference. He insists on playing games with real people who face real problems, instead of his usual cast of poltical sycophants.