When I heard the news yesterday, it was like hearing a family member had died. I had never even met the man, but the death of Tim Russert deeply shook me and leaves me concerned about the future of our nation.

Integrity and journalism have been on a mutually exclusive path since the birth of Fox News and the further shrinking the 24-hour news cycle and the American attention span. Today, though it seems we have wall-to-wall coverage of the Presidential candidates, try to find any meaningful discourse among the hours of talk. Try to find a reporter who actually knows what he or she is talking about and is able to slow down the spin machines long enough for us to see who we’re really voting for, what we’re really talking about.

But there has at least been one hour a week, one news show with limited commercial interruptions that we could count on. “Meet the Press”.

Meet the press, indeed. “Remember the Press”, is a name just as fitting. Remember what the press used to be. A symbol of wisdom and institutional knowledge. The Fourth Estate, able and needed to stand toe-to-toe with the most powerful people in Washington, as equals, and demand answers on our behalf. Few other institutions could command that respect from both Presidents and viewers like Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press”.

For all my adult life, if it was Sunday, it was “Meet the Press” and Tim Russert. Today is Saturday. What will I do tomorrow?