NBC’s Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, is dead of an apparent heart attack.

Dave Winer said that "the Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts." Russert stood as a symbol of an institutional journalistic hierarchy for many of us, and bloggers right and left railed against him mightily. He took arrows on behalf of many who practiced the journalism of his era, and stood his ground.

He is survived by his father, who is in his late 80s. Condolences to all his friends and family.