Meet Tim Russert

The host of 'Meet the Press' brings working-class roots to his job

Tim Russert has been dubbed the quintessential Washington, D.C., insider for his impressive network of sources and thorough, behind-the-scenes understanding of the complexities of the nation’s capital. As the NBC News Washington Bureau Chief, moderator and managing editor of TV’s Meet the Press, and a political analyst for Today and NBC Nightly News, he’s widely respected by viewers and fellow journalists for his no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase interviews with presidents, Supreme Court justices, senators and other international policymakers.

"I so admire Tim’s ability to weave his way through the political minefield of Washington," says Russert’s colleague Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News. "While on the air, he betrays no alliances and never violates a trust. He is as adept at political analysis as anyone in Washington. And he may know more of the players than any single media figure in the nation’s capital."

But it’s Russert’s roots in a working-class neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., that make him stand out in the ultra-polished world of network television. With his straightforward, common-sense approach, the plain-spoken Russert defies the stereotype of smooth-talking TV personal-ities with perfectly coiffed hair. "His great gift is that he’s never forgotten where he’s from," Williams says. "Quite the contrary: He wears his Buffalo roots like a badge of honor, and well he should."

No "high-falutin’ talk"

Instead of using state-of-the-art computer graphics to explain the 2000 presidential election, Russert simply grabbed a marker and wrote on a white board—"Florida, Florida, Florida"—to predict which state would decide the election. Although Russert, 55, is now one of the highest-paid journalists in America, reportedly earning more than $5 million a year, he remains acutely aware of the concerns of the common man and cuts through the Washington spin with direct, basic questions.

"To this day, my dad will say, ‘Speak to me in words I can understand,’" says Russert, who also hosts the Tim Russert Show on CNBC. "‘Don’t get caught up in the high-falutin’ Washington talk.’ People want to know what’s important to them and why it is important, whether it’s a hurricane or Social Security or taxes or a war."

When Russert became moderator of Meet the Press in 1991, he began studying TV news icons such as Tom Brokaw and David Brinkley. "Then I realized I just have to be myself," he says. "I don’t look like I’m a television anchor. They all have those rugged jaws and I have these cheeks.

"But I hope I can bring a level of credibility and authenticity that I am who I am. I am an extension of the way I grew up."

His father, Tim, a World War II veteran, drove a garbage truck and usually worked another job, and his mother, Betty, was a homemaker. They raised Timmy (as he was known then) and his sisters, Betty Ann, Kathleen and Patricia, in a close-knit Irish-Catholic neighborhood where parents sat on their porches, left their doors unlocked and didn’t hesitate to discipline their neighbors’ children.

"It was just a way of life and a way of looking at life: that people are essentially good and to whom much is given, much is expected," Russert says. "If you are blessed with a little more than someone else, don’t be afraid to share."

He spent his teenage summers working on garbage and newspaper trucks, driving taxis and making pizzas. That upbringing, he says, taught him "a way of life, a set of values, a grounding."

"When I talk about Social Security, I think about my mom and dad," he says. "When I talk about taxes, I think about my mom and dad and people in our neighborhood and my three sisters and their families. I think about a sense of right and wrong—you can look at things and say, ‘That just doesn’t feel right’—and a sense of accountability. I remember making mistakes and being held accountable, and that’s terribly important for a journalist to understand.

"But our job really is that of a watchdog and trying to hold our government accountable to its people," Russert says. "It’s easy for government officials to develop a sense of entitlement, and the one thing you learn in Buffalo growing up is that you are never, ever entitled. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t say to my son, ‘You are always, always loved, but you are never, never entitled.’"

Paternal values

Indeed, Russert’s father, whom he affectionately calls Big Russ, retired with 200 unused sick days and taught his son the value of hard work and education. Russert and his siblings did their homework around the kitchen table as the sweet aromas of his mother’s cooking drifted from the oven. "We couldn’t trade our pencil for a fork until all the homework was done," he says. Both parents signed his report cards.

However, it certainly wasn’t all work and no play for the father and son, who caught the International League’s Buffalo Bisons playing baseball whenever possible. It was during one of the outings, a 1963 exhibition game between the International League All-Stars and the New York Yankees, that Big Russ taught his 13-year-old a lesson that he never forgot.

"My dad bought tickets way up in the nosebleeds," he says. "I went down the aisle and tried desperately to get autographs. This one baseball player, Joe Pepitone, pushed me aside and I was crushed. I came back to my seat very dejected and my dad said, ‘What happened?’ I explained it to him and he said, ‘Don’t ever forget that. It takes as much time to be nice to someone as it does to be a jerk.’ It has stayed with me my entire life."

The first in his family to attend college, Russert accepted a partial scholarship from John Carroll University in Cleveland, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science, and then earned a law degree from Cleveland State University before passing the bar exam in 1976. After working in Buffalo, N.Y., as an aide to the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he eventually relocated to Washington to handle Moynihan’s media relations. He returned to New York to work as an adviser for Gov. Mario Cuomo, and joined NBC in 1984 as an assistant to the network’s president.

Believing Russert had potential to head a news organization, his new boss at NBC groomed him for the role, assigning him to the network’s Washington bureau in 1989. The next year, Russert was asked to serve as a panelist on Meet the Press, where his shoot-straight comments made him a candidate for the program’s moderator when that position came open with Garrick Utley’s departure in 1991. When the job was offered, Russert accepted.

Although he works seven days a week—attending church on Saturdays since his Sunday mornings are booked with Meet the Press—Russert makes it a priority to spend time with his family. Wife Maureen Orth, whom he married in 1983, is a correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, and their son, Luke, 20, is a sophomore at Boston College.

"Through the course of it, I have never missed one of my son’s football, baseball or soccer games," he says. "If he had a 3 o’clock game, I would carry my cell phone, go to it and come back. Everyone understood what I was doing. I think the most precious commodity you can give someone is your time.

"My relationship with my son is much different than the relationship my father had with me," says Russert, who admits he was "shattered" when his son left for college. "One, he is an only child. Secondly, I had the time and opportunity to be much more involved in his life and school and sports. My dad, because he was working so hard, couldn’t bring me to a lot of places. I probably overcompensate for that. I try to go everywhere and bring my son with me."

Russert says he feels blessed to have enjoyed a career that’s allowed him to meet the pope, interview presidents and learn so much about so many subjects. "My dad’s favorite expression is, ‘What a country!’" Russert says. "I look back to see the house I was born in and my dad quit school in tenth grade. The fact that the son of a truck driver and garbage man is now the moderator of Meet the Press, that’s everything you want to know about who we are as a people, society and a country. It’s not very complicated to know me. What you see is who I am. I am just someone who grew up in an extremely traditional lower middle-class upbringing and celebrates the uniqueness of this country every day.

"It can’t happen anywhere else," he says, then pauses. "It doesn’t happen anywhere else."

Beverly Keel is a contributing editor for American Profile.

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