What to do when the headhunter calls

Some big jobs are open in journalism. More will come. Revolving doors churn faster with the industry in economic upheaval.
A city editor once advised me I was “on the up escalator, because management had its eye on me.”
My wife and I got a big laugh out of that. Still do.
Ambition is normal, however. No one should apologize for wanting to be considered.
The turmoil in management is so rampant and widespread across media platforms, the next call a news executive gets may be from a search firm.
Leonard Downie, Jr. is retiring from The Washington Post after a fabled run as executive editor. He’s making way so a new publisher can have her own person to meld print and online coverage.
Everyone in and out of media has a favorite candidate to succeed the late Tim Russert as NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief and moderator of Meet the Press. Actually, that could take two appointments.
How wise of the network to ask Tom Brokaw, its dean of broadcasters, to preside on the Sunday morning show in the interim.
It’s tough to take a saint’s place on a permanent basis. And Russert certainly received media canonization so rapidly, the Vatican must wonder if it could speed its own process for beatification.
Note to the halo hungry: Try to follow a sinner or at least allow some time to lapse before your own succession to magnificence. And more advice...

• Make sure you have something to add to the civic conversation.
• Journalists are content providers, so don't go too techno crazy.
• It’s a cliché to want to make a difference; choose that attitude anyway.
• Forget about the kingdom and the power and the glory; just do the news.
• Keep family uppermost as Tim Russert did; we have enough misplaced priorities.
• Don't get snowed by the perks and the bucks.

Journalism is a public service and a Constitutional privilege with responsibility attached to protect The People with information.
If that job description doesn’t fit the offer, thank the headhunter for the call and go back to work.

Keep Tim’s name at work

Tim Russert deserves a living memorial from journalism.
The testament should endure much longer and more meaningfully than the on-air shrine of NBC’s coverage about his passing.
Despite the network’s backlashing critics, no one honestly can be surprised by the broadcasters’ excess on behalf of their Washington bureau chief and moderator of the best political talk show.
Instead of, “If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press,” the slogan could be, “If it’s NBC, here’s another tribute to Tim.”
There’s a simple reason for the immoderation about the moderator. NBC did it because it could. And his many friends and colleagues did it, because they wanted to.
So let the longest running wake on television play itself out. By general agreement the Russert name is too good for his colleagues to wear out.
I know I don’t let the first day of the week pass without watching Meet the Press. I also watch ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos for contrast. And I finish the Sunday papers-on-the-air with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer who claims the best political team in the business.
Maybe the cable crew does deserve ranking in the group category.
Tim Russert was the tops in singles for good reasons: He asked questions. He asked them well. He asked them only after research.
Perhaps that’s not a lost art in journalism.
But the nation blundered into the Iraq War behind our unquestioning press corps. The Bush-Cheney cat got the tongue of White House reporters on all sorts of policies that will take long years to reverse. And community print and broadcast media lack the chutzpah of the blogosphere when seeking the bottom of local, state and regional issues that matter.
I’ve witnessed reporters read a press release and pose an inquiry on the text so the utility, business, police or public official could ever so politely parrot the official statement back for camera or steno pad.
Fear of appearing rude, contrary or uninformed intrudes: Don’t stand out in the crowd.
Well, Tim Russert must have cared about country, about the civic conversation and about the future more than he cared about smooth talk. He wasn’t abrasive as ABC’s Sam Donaldson in his heyday or as rantingly partisan as the skulk from the Fox hole or as blandly scattershot as Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour on PBS or as politically poetic as Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation.
He was the studious case detective armed with the facts and merely asking the politician to account for the record so different from the latest statement. He had the tape or the film clip or the transcript as back-up.
Tim Russert was the master of the question.
So we should honor him by putting his name into the professional language.
From now on a question shall be called a “Tim.”
And the act of questioning with factual support shall be called “Doing a Russert.”
It’s a fitting memorial.