The continued and steady decline of Geraldo Rivera is very sad to those of us who were up and coming or aspiring journalist in the early 70s, when he was considered a young hot shot who embodied broadcast “investigative journalism.” It has been a steady decline once he left ABC, even if he did get boffo ratings for a while as a daytime talk show host.
Mediaite has THIS POST that is the latest chapter: Rivera being axed as a nationally syndicated talk show host and replaced by a right winger. His show will only be heard on WABC in NYC. The post is filled with Rivera’s peppeery Tweets dueling with talk show host Tom Leykis. Leykis is also a talk show host who was canceled at least once in his career. It goes with the territory and Rivera’s response is unlikely to get him any new radio gigs.
It’s all so sad because, yes, Gerald Rivera was once a role model and not only for Latino journalists.
His low point was this selfie.
Let’s hope it doesn’t give Chris Christie any ideas.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.