Luke Russert and nepotism

Found this interesting bit of tid out there today from Miami Herald columnist James Burnett. An African-American, Burnett has been struggling with the comparisons between affirmative action and nepotism in light of NBC's hiring of Luke Russert, son of the late Pumpkinhaid himself. And Burnett concludes that, whatever you call it, Luke wasn't playing on a level field when it came to NBC.

Seriously, my feelings ranged from slight haterism, as in silent grumblings of "wish that was me!" to annoyance, as in "what the hell did he do to deserve such a gig?" to downright anger over what I initially perceived to be a big old wet kiss from the Affirmative Action Fairy.

Then it occurred to me that this technically wasn't affirmative action, 'cause affirmative action is a formal government policy whose stated goal is to give a nudge to ethnic minorities and women who might otherwise face discrimination in certain hiring and schools admissions policies.

So I came to the conclusion then that young Russert had instead been kissed by the Nepotism Fairy, paternal twin of the Affirmative Action Fairy.

While NBC News issued a straight-faced statement saying that Russert was hired because it was crucial that the youth vote be covered thoroughly at the conventions, let's be blunt. It couldn't have hurt for him to be a Russert. Also, TV news is about ratings. So, sorry NBC News. But this has ratings gimmick written all over it.

Yep, that's the key right there. NBC knows that Timmeh's death is still fresh in the minds of millions of Americans, and they'll be tuning in to see if the Son, fresh out of Boston College, can follow in the Father's footsteps. No way Russert gets the gig if his name isn't, well, Russert.

I'm not saying he's not a good young journalist. But jumping right from college to network news is pretty much unprecedented, I imagine.

I guess this is NBC's equivalent of Nancy Reagan humping her late husband's casket. I mean, there was so little coverage of Timmeh's untimely death when it happened ...

Tim Russert (1950-2008)

No, I didn't have any respect for Tim Russert's faux-journalistic enabling of the Bush crime syndicate through his rah-rah support of the illegal "war" in Iraq and his constant fluffing of maladministration officials, but this is one "liberal blog" that doesn't celebrate anyone's death. So RIP Li'l Russ.

No matter what his political bent and inability to challenge the Right, he seemed like he enjoyed his life and his family. He was only 58 -- much too young.

UPDATE (7:36 am 6/14/08): The hagiography is getting a bit much. As of this moment, it's still all Punkinhaid, all the time on all three major cable news networks. I can almost understand MSNBC's constant coverage -- after all, Russert was an NBC stalwart -- but to see "Remember Tim Russert" continuing on Fox News, let alone CNN's ongoing he's-still-dead treatment just goes to show everyone that the world Inside the Beltway and In the Village is vastly different than what we live in the rest of the country. I've even seen stories on Russert's death on ESPN and on the NFL Network.

Look, Russert's death is tragic and sad and unfortunate and all that, but he wasn't the president or the pope or even known at all to a vast majority of the American public. Sorry, Villagers, it's true. I'm quite confident more Americans knew, for example, who Heath Ledger was than knew of Tim Russert, yet the imbalance of coverage in their respective deaths is so far out of proportion to their news value, it's amazing.

Hey, Villagers, I'm sorry your friend died, but there's still an illegal war in Iraq and massive flooding in the Midwest and impeachment proceedings beginning in the House ... you know, real news. But I suppose it would be too much to ask you to do your jobs. After all, you haven't shown that you can do that for years now ...