Working-Class Viewers Lost One of Their Own

A lot of famous journalists and politicians have been weighing in on the death of Tim Russert, but lost in this media fest of mourning are the voices of those who made him famous.

That would be his millions of viewers — most of them regular Americans, many of them sharing Russert's working-class roots. To many of them, Russert was one of their own.

"I met Timmy many, many years ago," John Gavner said in a story in The Buffalo News. "I worked on garbage trucks at the time. He'd get out and stop to talk with us. He'd stop and talk to anybody."

A reader named Tari Lea Tennant wrote this online response to a Los Angeles Times story on Russert:

"I'm just your average middle class person, who for as many years as I can remember, watched Tim every week. I felt that if I watched Meet the Press with Tim I could at least, be somewhat, of an informed voter."

Another reader, Nancy, wrote: "For about 15 years I have taped 'Meet the Press' every Sunday morning before I went to church. … I felt I could get the true picture from the guest because Tim asked the tough questions, but was never mean-spirited. I feel as though I have lost a member of my family."

My friend Sue's father, who grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., said he felt as if he'd just lost a son. My sisters, Leslie and Toni, left tender messages as soon as they heard the news. They didn't know Russert, but they knew he was one of us.

Tim Russert referred often to his humble beginnings in Buffalo, and many of us who come from the same background appreciated his willingness to embrace, rather than deny, his roots. I talked at length with Russert only once, and it was clear that both of us were working-class kids leading pinch-me lives.

"I still can't believe I get to do this for a living," he said after learning that my father was a factory worker. "Isn't this something?"

We were talking in the green room before my husband's "Meet the Press" debate with his opponent in Ohio's 2006 U.S. Senate race. Russert had a journalist's love for stories and mischief in equal measure.

First, he told us we'd be in the same studio as the 1960 debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Then he gleefully shared the story behind Nixon's glandular meltdown.

"You know why Nixon started sweating so much?" Russert said, his eyes wide. "Bobby Kennedy knew Nixon sweated easily, and so he came into the studio early and turned up the thermostat."

It was a brief moment of behind-the-scenes levity, followed by an hour of on-the-air grilling. Quintessential Russert, I'm told by those who knew him well.

I didn't always agree with Russert's take or his tactics, but I am grateful that he was so publicly proud to come from the working class. It didn't hurt that he had ties to my beloved Cleveland, where he went to college and law school.

Bill Gagliano, a partner at Ulmer & Berne law firm in Cleveland, was a fellow member of the U-Club fraternity in the mid-'70s when he met Russert at John Carroll University. He never knew him well but relished time with him whenever the newscaster returned for reunions he easily could have skipped.

"One of my fondest memories is when six or seven of us guys, including Tim, were sitting around having a beer around 2 a.m. We were all working-class kids, some of us the first in our family to go to college.

"None of Tim's stories were ever about who he'd met or who was on 'Meet the Press.' He liked to tell stories about the guys he knew in school and always wanted to know what had happened to them."

Gagliano was sitting at his desk in downtown Cleveland last Friday afternoon when he got the e-mail from a colleague who had noticed his framed photograph of him with Russert.

"It just said 'reportedly died,'" Gagliano said. "So at first, I didn't believe it."

A few minutes later, though, another colleague called to confirm the worst for Bill Gagliano. At that moment, the son of a barber and a grocery cashier began to grieve.

Membership in the same college fraternity brought them together.

But it was their working-class roots that made them brothers.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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