It was announced over the weekend that Tom Brokaw will be the host of "Meet the Press" through the Nov. 4 general election. He is an excellent short-term choice. Hopefully, the long-term choice will be equally impressive.
The task cannot be easy, and tensions will undoubtedly be high as the jockeying begins. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is all-too familiar to me.
At the newspaper where I used to work, a good friend of mine suffered a massive heart attack and died just after he got home from work one hot summer day. Two hours before he died, he asked me to go outside with him and smoke a cigarette. Although it had been several years since I had quit, I would occasionally smoke one with him just to be cool. He was very cool.
Thomas S. Flannery was 56 and the newspaper's court reporter. He was a legend in Lancaster County (Pa.) and the owner of Pulitzer Prize for breaking the International Signal & Control scandal in the 1980s. Because we were a morning paper and shared a newsroom with our competition (a whole other crazy story in its own right), every reporting position except for his was a 3 to 11:30 p.m. shift. The day after Flannery died, there were a number of people who put their names out for the job, and the atmosphere grew stressful. As much as I wanted the hours, I didn't want to join the scramble. Just the thought of taking Tom's job gave me a chill.
Even though I never put my name in for the job, the editor offered it to me two weeks later. I told him I would only accept the job under certain circumstances, the most important of which was a raise. My editor was a penny-pincher, so I thought that would be the end of it. To my surprise he agreed, and I became the new court reporter on July 1, 2004. I was highly resented. Tom hadn't even been dead a month.
Before he died, Flannery often took me over to the courthouse to introduce me around. I met judges, the district attorney, defense attorneys and secretaries (the most important people in the building). Tom told me he was grooming me for the job for when he retired. We had a very special relationship -- he took me under his wing and gave me the nickname, "Boogaloo."
That was the last thing he said to me, actually. When I looked over from my desk, which was two desks away from his, he raised two fingers to his lips and threw me a look that said, "Cigarette?"
I'll never forgive myself for not having that one last smoke with him.
After doing the job for 15 years, Tom cast a long shadow indeed. I didn't even attempt to fill his shoes. As the months turned into years, I did the best I could with what little info he had given me, and eventually, I cut my own niche. Still, I often wished I could give Flannery a call to get his guidance on one issue or another.
I tell this story, because I'm sure the level of difficulty in making the transition at NBC will be great -- even for someone as revered and experienced as Tom Brokaw. My experience may have been on a small stage, but it was daunting, nonetheless; I can only imagine what it will be like in front of an international audience. My heart goes out to Mr. Brokaw.
As for the ghouls who might want to swoop down like vultures on the vacancy left by Russert, their actions should tell those saddled with filling the position all they need to know about what they'd bring to the job -- and that should be enough to preclude them.
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