AT WHAT PRICE PUBLICITY?
Gun-toting, self-important Geraldo is no asset to Fox News
by Deborah Potter

When Fox News hired Geraldo Rivera from CNBC last November, network executives surely knew what they were getting-controversy and publicity. From the moment the switch was announced, Rivera drew more attention to his new network than even the over-hyped Ashleigh Banfield and her black-rimmed spectacles had brought to MSNBC. But now that Rivera has made a spectacle of himself, you have to wonder if the Fox folks wanted everything they got.

"I've always had a bull's eye painted right on my backside, particularly with my colleagues," Rivera told Fox host Bill O'Reilly on his return from the Afghan front. True enough. After launching his broadcast career almost 30 years ago with a groundbreaking expose of abuse at a New York state mental institution, Rivera's reputation as a journalist quickly declined as he loaded story after story with his personal views. By the mid-80s, he was staging silly TV tricks on syndicated specials, like opening Al Capone's empty vault, and hosting his own tabloid show complete with flying chairs that left him with a broken nose.

So it shouldn't have surprised anyone when Rivera's reports from Afghanistan were as much about him as the war. There he was, packing a gun and threatening the bad guys: "If they're going to get us, it's going to be in a gunfight." There he was again, ducking sniper fire. "You hear that unmistakable zing as the bullet breaks the sound barrier," he reported. "Didn't quite part my hair, but it was close enough." And there he was, describing a visit to what he called "hallowed ground…that area where the friendly fire hit," on December 5, the day three American soldiers were killed. "I said The Lord's Prayer and really choked up," he told a Fox anchor in a live report. "I could almost choke up relating the story to you right now."

The trouble with that report, as everyone now knows, is not just the over-the-top showboating by FNC's highly paid "war correspondent." The trouble is that Rivera was near Tora Bora at the time, hundreds of miles from the incident near Kandahar that everyone was talking about that day.

When David Folkenflik of the Baltimore Sun pointed out the discrepancy, Rivera said he was confused in "the fog of war," and was referring to a separate bombing run that same day that took the lives of some Afghan fighters. But Pentagon officials told Folkenflik the only friendly fire incident they know about near Tora Bora took place three days after Rivera's choked up report.

At most news organizations, questionable reporting has consequences, and it should. After all, it raises doubts about the credibility of the individual and the news organization. The Boston Globe fired Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith for fabricating details and quotes. ABC News apologized on the air and reprimanded Cokie Robert for appearing to present a live report from Capitol Hill when she was actually in the studio, wearing a coat, in front of a projected picture of the Capitol dome. But Fox hasn't even done that much. It was an "honest mistake," the network says, vouchsafing its "full confidence in [Rivera's] explanation and journalistic integrity."

And that's not all. After bringing Rivera back from the battlefield, Fox saw fit to put him on the air as a guest, where instead of being held to account he was given a platform to launch a personal attack on his critics. He slammed CNN's Aaron Brown for questioning his truthfulness, saying Brown would "poop in his pants if he was anywhere near what I was near in Afghanistan." And he took direct aim at Folkenflik, whom he called "a really weak kneed, back stabbing, sweaty palmed reporter from a minor newspaper." For a man who titled his autobiography "Exposing Myself," Rivera has a mighty thin skin.

"Some would say Rivera is very good at what he does," says Folkenflik of the Sun. "The question is what is he doing?"

What indeed? Before he became a reporter, Rivera was a lawyer. He might even remember the old saying among lawyers, "If you don't have the facts argue the law, and if you don't have the law pound on the table." Fox may believe it can salvage Rivera's credibility by letting him do some table pounding in public, but the damage has been done. Based on the evidence so far, Rivera appears to be either a fraud or a fool. What he plainly is not is a journalist. If he were, he'd know that old saying among journalists, the sacred rule that John Hersey called the legend on the license, "None of this was made up."

This article was originally published by American Journalism Review, March 2002.