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• Monday, December 1, 2008 08:00 AM

  Tina Brown's suggestion to "terrified" Steve Capus and to other "terrified" NBC Universal executives

  http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-01/washingtons-other-transition/

  Washington's Other Transition
  by Tina Brown

  How is it Obama can fill a Cabinet faster than NBC can replace Tim Russert?

  The suits at NBC are doing far more agonizing over who should fill Tim Russert’s shoes on Meet the Press than Obama is over appointing his cabinet. They're taking more time over it, too. I guess that’s because the president-elect has something the NBC front office doesn’t have: self-confidence. Unlike him, they’re so terrified of making a mistake they can't make a decision. [...]

  Russert himself was not a journalist. He came from politics. His interviews either promoted his subjects or subjected them to opposition research. He was the Washington élite’s staff man, stoking their prejudices, whims, and attitudes. His regular-guy persona flattered the élite by making them imagine they were regular guys too. [...]

  NBC seems to be paralyzed by the sense that whomever they chose has to be another Russert. Not so. Russert defined an era, but that era is over. [...]

  I say give Meet the Press to Rachel Maddow. She’s smart. She’s quick. She’s witty. She does her homework. And she listens to what the person she’s talking to is saying. She doesn't just go to the next question on her list. [...]

  - - Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast [...]

  —sysprog Read sysprog's other letters
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