Life - and death - move so quickly in the Internet age. Consummate American political journalist Tim Russert , best known as host of Meet the Press, died suddenly several hours ago of a heart attack in the Washington DC offices of NBC News.
The news was instantly all over Twitter, the social networking / micro blogging platform.
If you had any doubt that "new media" possesses as much gravitas as established MSM, take a look at his Wikipedia page, already updated in the past tense. He will be sorely missed here in D.C. as well as around the world.
Useful Link
More on the magic of Twitter (as it relates to Tim Russert) by Steve Gillmor
Previous Comments
Kare Anderson said on June 13, 2008 at 08:45 PM
Being driven back from the airport we heard the news (he was on of my early mentors) checked email via iPhone and already several journalists/former colleagues were sending private and public notes to each other.
Tim was a game-changer re how politics was covered and watched social media in fascination, not quite knowing what to do with it, but encouraging interns to keep showing examples of its use to him. As Robin Sharma once wrote, “who will cry when you die”... like Andrea Mitchell, there are many out there who welled up, talking and twittering about Tim.
John Bickerton said on June 16, 2008 at 12:51 PM
I don’t know, it seems troubling that a man isn’t even buried yet and someone (with too much time on their hands) has already updated the guy’s wikipedia page.
That’s not communications its ambulance chasing. Respect???
Tom Chandler/Copywriter Underground said on June 16, 2008 at 08:07 PM
I’m not at all sure gravitas is the word I’d use:
“In accordance with American journalistic tradition, the public announcement of Russert’s death was withheld by both the Wire Services and his network’s competitors; breaking with this tradition the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia announced his death nearly 30 minutes before NBC”
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