In Russert Wake, NBC News Seeks New D.C. Chief

On the morning of Sunday, June 22, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams made a much anticipated announcement at the end of Meet the Press, which he was moderating in the wake of Tim Russert’s sudden death of a heart attack nine days earlier.

“Beginning next week, my friend Tom Brokaw has agreed to step in as moderator of Meet the Press, to get us through this election season,” said Mr. Williams. “And allow me to add, during these past difficult days, Tom’s been an enormous comfort here in this Washington bureau.”

A comfort: yes. A full-time presence in Washington: no. In recent days, Mr. Brokaw has told several reporters that he will continue to live and work at his cabin in Montana while commuting to D.C. on the weekends to moderate the show.

And while Russert’s Sunday morning television appearances are what most Americans will miss most about the late Washington bureau chief of NBC, it was his stewardship of the bureau—and his successful consolidation of power within it—that was the great organizational achievement of his tenure. That position remains vacant.

On Monday afternoon, NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust confirmed to The Observer that Mr. Brokaw will not be assuming the title of D.C. bureau chief and that NBC executives will continue to look for someone to fill the role.

“We feel like we’re in good hands in the meantime,” said Ms. Gollust. “We have a great team in place there. The folks that are keeping the bureau running are doing a great job, particularly in light of what they’ve had to live through in the past 10 days.”

By all accounts, the job of Washington bureau chief for a broadcast news division is what you make of it. It can be an easy life, if you are happy to take direction from headquarters and run errands for the head of the news division. Or it can be challenging, if you mean to make your Washington bureau one that has the power to call its own shots.

But at a minimum, a bureau chief is expected to oversee the division’s roster of über-competitive correspondents, handling such delicate tasks as, say, doling out candidate assignments at the start of presidential elections. The chief must also serve as the liaison to all the major institutions in Washington, from the White House to the Pentagon. And the chief must continuously grapple with producers in New York to make sure his reporters get plenty of airtime on the morning and evening newscasts.

Beyond that, the title of Washington bureau chief is a great license to serve as a kind of all-purpose beltway bon vivant. Wining and dining sources, handing out tickets to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, trafficking in gossip, trading news bits, jockeying with rivals and racking up booth time at Cafe Milano are all part of the job. It’s a coveted position, and already there has been much speculation among D.C. insiders about whom NBC will tap for the position.

In recent days, several sources at the network told The Observer that they believe NBC News’ senior vice president, Mark Whitaker, is the most likely candidate to land the gig.

Mr. Whitaker, who is 50-years-old, joined NBC News in May 2007 as the No. 2 executive in the news division behind its president, Steve Capus. At the time, Mr. Whitaker had little television experience, having spent the bulk of his career at Newsweek, where he held several editing and reporting positions before eventually serving as the top editor from 1998 until 2006.