On the radio (baseball) and online, I heard and saw the news that Tim Russert passed away today. Online I followed some of the links and skimmed some of the stories. The political blogs are packed with seemingly everyone writing a little tribute. Unsurprisingly, the tributes are glowingly positive, reminding us of everything wonderful about Tim Russert. Reading only today's stories, if one didn't know better, one would think he was the greatest journalist of all times.

But of course one does know better, so it's clear enough what's happening. Like anyone else, Russert had his good qualities and his bad qualities, but on a day like today we focus only on the good. You don't have to go back very far to find other stories, from when he was still alive, criticizing his flaws or using him as an example of much that is wrong with political journalism — some of them probably from the same writers praising him today.

This is as it should be. Common decency is important, and you don't say unkind things about a guy on the day he dies. There is certainly a time and a place for a tough critique of Russert's style of journalism — the Washington Monthly published a good one last December — but only an insensitive clod would think that time is now.

Although I wouldn't change it, I'm intrigued by the larger message this sends to readers of the news. For this phenomenon does not apply only to well-known celebrities like Russert. It applies to everyone. You don't say bad things about a person right after he dies. Certainly not in public, or to a reporter.

The news is filled with stories of people who died — vehicular accidents, crime victims, untimely medical failures. Typically these stories are accompanied by little interviews with the people who knew the deceased. "He was such a wonderful guy. Everyone loved him." That's the sort of thing you usually hear.

But it is a truism that most people are not above average. Surely a large and virtually random sample of unfortunate victims will encompass the whole range from good to bad. What happens when an unpleasant person dies and his acquaintances are interviewed? Will you ever hear someone say this?

or this?

Of course you won't. It might be more honest, but it's not right. You hate to kick a guy when he's down, and no one would be so churlish to kick a guy when he just died. Or even if someone did, the reporter wouldn't use the quote. Just like the journalists praising Tim Russert today, you'll forget your differences and remember the good things. Even if you dislike a guy, you'll still find something nice to say; and if you felt neutral about him, you'll be even nicer still. And in the unlikely event that someone is so irredeemably bad that there's nothing good to remember about him, you'll keep your mouth shut.

The result is that every person who dies will appear a few degrees nicer in his obituary than he would otherwise. That's great if you know him. What if you don't know him? What if you read or watch the news every day and in the course of a year you hear about two hundred strangers who died various unfortunate deaths?

We sometimes hear about how news coverage makes people irrationally fearful of crimes or accidents because the news focus makes them seem more common than they actually are. A subtler effect is that the news makes the victims of these crimes and accidents seems like a more worthy class of people than they really are, with the resulting vague sense that bad things happen disproportionately to good people. They don't.

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