Slashdot Mirror
Tim Russert Dies At 58
SputnikPanic writes "Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington bureau chief and moderator of the popular Sunday talk program Meet the Press, has died of an apparent heart attack. He was 58. Russert was known as an even-handed journalist who did not shy away from asking direct and often difficult questions of politicians regardless of their political persuasion. Earlier this year, Russert had been named by Time Magazine as one of the '100 most influential people in the world.'"
While this is an interesting story, I don't see why it has anything to do with Slashdot. Tim Russard dieing is of very little interest to most geeks, and of especially little interest to people outside the US, since his whole sow was solely based on US politics.
I've discovered something: claiming in a post that the post will be downmodded due to groupthink is a surefire way to keep it from being downmodded. It seems you've discovered this as well.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
Somebody call the waaaaaambulance! We've got a bleeder!
Tim Russert was not even-handed. He was a former White House staffer.
He typically softballed Republicans and turned his investigative skills loose only when interviewing Democrats. I know real even-handed journalists at (and above) Russert's level who have commented to me that they think he is a disgrace, even that there should be some prohibition on former political operatives taking jobs like moderator of Meet the Press, as it is clearly a conflict of interest for our Press to be in bed with our politicians.
I wish Media Matters went back farther than two years. It would be interesting to compare Scott McLellan's admissions of the lack of due diligence by the White House Press Corps with a log of Russert's failings in the days leading up to the war.
http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/tags/tim_russert
... never heard of him. If he is worthy of mourning then I wish all those affected all my condolences.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Don't feel badly about the Flamebait mod. I'm looking that the article, as it sits, with 97 comments. Apparently the guy (whoever he was--typical Slashdotters seem to be far more television-oriented than I am) was popular--to the point that everyone with something good (even regarding random maudlin sentimentality as good) to say about the man gets modded up, and anyone else gets modded down. This article, so far, is the single best piece of evidence I've seen yet for how completely broken the moderation system is.
From:
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
"Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children who like to spam Slashdot in check."
A post (modded Insightful) down the thread:
"I'd have to say he was actually a great man and a great reporter...from what I know of the man he was a good father and an excellent role model.
R.I.P. Tim, you will be sorely missed, not only on election nights, but on Sunday mornings. And though I'm not a Buffalo Bills fan...in your honor I say...Go Bills..."
Where's the insight in that? Three sentences, all personal opinion, displaying nothing but sentimentality, and one was about expressing support for some random football team in Teh Great Man's 'honor'!
This entire article is *stuffed* with that sort of thing. Slashdot lurches toward mediocrity again. The up side is that now I won't feel guilty when I read without turning off adblock.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.