My favorite American broadcast journalist, Tim Russert, has died of a heart attack.

It was too bad. I really loved watching his show. When I was in the US, I woke up early on Sundays just so I could watch Meet the Press. If I missed a show, I’d watch him online, internet connection permitting. I wrote this entry about the show last January:

I’m usually a sleep monster. I like sleeping in whenever I can. I can sleep in for half the day. It’s a given, then, that weekends are sleeping-in days for me. But after I lost heavenly cable TV (As you can see, I’m still fixated on that. Apologies. TV is an addiction, albeit a not-so-destructive one.), I’ve had to relearn my viewing habits. Meaning if there’s a show I want to watch I have to watch it when it’s on because it won’t be on repeat on a cable channel and sometimes I’m too lazy to watch it in full online. Don’t ask, I just am.

Anyway, I’ve been waking up early on Sundays. Why? Because of a political show on NBC called Meet the Press with Tim Russert. I know, I know. It’s geeky. It’s dorky. But I love it. I’m such a political junkie especially with this current U.S. presidential elections. I admit to not being an expert, but I believe I know more than the average person. And I did it through a combination of things, starting with watching the West Wing from season 1 to the final episode on NBC, reading the NY Times, the LA Times and New York Magazine regularly, among others, and yes, even reading a high school text book on the U.S. government at the library just so that I would “get” it. When I arrived in the U.S., I only had the tiniest background on American government.

I just read Tim Russert’s biography and it seems like he has won every major journ award on the planet. Well, I’m not surprised. I’m just a couch potato not having a clue what I was watching and yet when I chanced upon him doing an interview on one of those Sundays, I was drawn to him. He’s not abrasive, he asks really smart but relatively simple questions, he brings out the best, it seems, in the person that he’s interviewing. He doesn’t come across as partisan but just as an affable moderator who wants answers to certain issues. So now I may have to spend more time watching or reading the Meet the Press website online.

Today, Sen. John McCain was on. I haven’t watched him in a while on TV. I was surprised at how diplomatic he seemed and how calm. There is no doubt about it that he has made a complete turnaround, from someone who the press initially dismissed as a dead in the water candidate to someone who now actually seems like the only viable one who might win it for the Republicans.

The analysis with Maureen Dowd and two other journalists after was equally interesting.

So yes, I join the millions of Americans who make this show a top-rater.

What’s more, he died the same age as my dad and with similar cause of death. It’s too bad too that he died during a historic election year, which I think he would have loved to cover.

May your soul rest in peace, Tim Russert. You will be sorely missed.