Thank You,
Geraldo!

Thank God for Geraldo Rivera.  Once again, he has come through clearly and lucidly.

I say this knowing that television's Bill O'Reilly of The O'Reilly Factor shares a different view.  O'Reilly recently took his Fox News stablemate to task for saying in an interview with Michael Jackson that he believes Jackson is innocent of child molestation and conspiracy.  He believes Jackson is innocent of 28 allegations of "overt acts" from false imprisonment to extortion.  He believes Jackson is being set up.  Rivera said all this while fawning mercilessly over the former King of Pop. 

When O'Reilly scolded him for taking so subjective a position in public, Rivera redefined the very essence of journalism by calling it "...sticking up for the unpopular, not the popular."

Man, what a relief!  I had been looking for a definition of journalism for years--one that I could live with more easily than the one I had been using.  You know, the one they teach you in J-School?  That journalism is the objective reporting of news with honesty, integrity, and balance and without bias or intent to mislead.  Geez, as noble as that sounds, that's a lot to expect from a guy.  Any guy.

From now on, I'm going with Gerry.  Golly, gee, I like his response far better than my own.  His version is something I can actually handle.  Mine was, well, a bit tough to live up to, if you know what I mean.

Of course, while expanding the concept of journalism, it's true that Rivera has led what some misguided critics might call a checkered past.  A one-time pugilist and attorney, he cut a $30 million deal for a six-year gig as an NBC news journalist in 1997.  During his time with the peacock, he mixed serious investigative reporting with "tawdry talk-show fare and the downright bizarre," according to InfoPlease (www.infoplease.com).  Before that, his broadcasting career was nothing short of inspirational.

Following a stint working for New York's WABC-TV in 1970–75, Rivera became a host and a correspondent for Good Night America, followed by three years with Good Morning America (1973–76).  During 1978–85, he worked for 20/20.  His report on Elvis Presley's drug use remains the highest-rated segment in the show's history. 

His highly touted syndicated special, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault, became TV's highest rated special ever.  In it, Rivera promised to reveal on live TV the ill-gotten treasures or possibly some dead bodies or even rare historical artifacts of the nation's most notorious mobster.  With typical Geraldo flair, he fired a submachine gun through the wall of the second-floor gymnasium at Chicago's Lexington Hotel only to reveal a small pile of dirt and a solitary beer bottle.  It was television's equivalent of a pie in the face.

In November 1988, the Geraldo talk show garnered its highest ratings in history.  Young Hate Mongers featured John Metzger of the Aryan Youth Movement, Robert Heick of the National Front (both white supremacy groups), Roy Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality (black), rabbi A. Bruce Goldman (Jewish), and a New Jersey couple who claimed that they'd been terrorized by skinheads.  Sitting in the audience was an army of neo-Nazi skinheads representing the National Resistance.

Metzger complained about "kikes" and called Innis an "Uncle Tom."  Innis walked over to Metzger and placed his hands on the boy's neck.  As pandemonium broke out, so did Rivera's nose as Metzger's bodyguard sent a chair flying into his face.

In 1994, Rivera jumped ship to CNBC with Rivera Live, a more serious attempt to deliver sensationalized coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial.  In 2001, he moved to the Fox News Channel as a war correspondent, where he ended up with egg on his face for reporting from the "very footsteps" where the previous day American troops had died as a result of friendly fire. 

In the broadcast, Rivera intoned the Lord's Prayer and described the site as ''hallowed ground."  But there was a problem, as David Folkenfilk of The Baltimore Sun later pointed out.  Rivera had been broadcasting from hundreds of miles away from the spot where the incident actually occurred.  The Fox News Channel concluded that Rivera had made a regrettable error.  Geraldo defended his reporting as ''an innocent mistake'' in which he mistook ''the carnage in Tora Bora'' for the bloodshed in Kandahar.

Later, in defending himself on Live With Regis and Kelly, Rivera suggested that Folkenfilk was suffering from penis envy.

Still later, in March of 2003, while on assignment covering the war in Iraq, Geraldo was thrown out of the country by American military officials for drawing a map in the sand, revealing to anyone watching sensitive information about U.S. troop locations.

Yes, through diligence and complacency, through a flare for the dramatic and a disregard for truth and integrity, Geraldo Rivera has shown journalists time and again that reporting no longer need be confined to the factual and the moral.  In doing so, he has single-handedly broadened the meaning of fair and balanced journalism to include the tawdry and the tainted.  As such, he has opened up the very definition of journalism so that, today, far more people can call themselves--in all fairness and honesty--journalists.

Now, at long last, people such as Matt Drudge, Kitty Kelley, Michael Moore, and--hell, why not?--Jerry Springer can sit back, smile at themselves in the mirror, and claim to be newsmen.  All I can say to that is...it's about time.

It makes a fellow proud to be part of the Fourth Estate, knowing that there's little he can say or do to disgrace himself in the eyes of fellow journalists everywhere.  For that, I salute you, Mr. Rivera. 

Hell, I'll bet even Dan Rather would be proud.

And I...am D. J. Herda.

D. J. Herda is President of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://amsaw.org), an organization made up of authors, writers, editors, publishers, agents, directors, producers, and other media professionals who rely upon the printed word in the creation of quality literature and entertainment.  He is a member of the Author's Guild, a former member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a former member of the National Press Club.  He has published more than 80 books and several hundred thousand articles, short stories, columns, interviews, plays, and scripts.
 

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