-Caveat Lector-
http://208.240.252.87/wtc/geraldo-lied2.htm
December 19, 2001
Rivera, Fox ripped by rivals over war coverage
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Is it Geraldo bashing � or Fox bashing? A peeved press has
accused Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera of false
reporting, warmongering and questionable antics during his assignment
in Afghanistan. But the discord may run deeper.
Mr. Rivera has not cried on camera yet, as CBS' Dan Rather did
back in September. But he has carried a pistol, rolled in the sand,
sported a suede bush hat and offered his portrayal of Geraldo as
Hemingway, of he-man reportage, rife with guts, glory and meaningful
pauses. Even his own cameraman (cameramen, who can't fake anything,
are the real captains of derring-do) said, "They don't make a helmet
big enough for his head."
Bombast notwithstanding, critics have questioned Mr. Rivera's
credibility, both for the content of his dispatches and his decision
to carry a gun in a war zone. The chorus includes CBS and ABC, a hint
that the old unwritten rules of civility among broadcast competitors
are eroding. Things are getting personal. (The newspaper and magazine
correspondents, who generally regard the TV journalists as more
entertainers than reporters, anyway, take a more bemused view of the
contretemps).
"Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera, who couldn't bear being
away from the action in Afghanistan, was hundreds of miles from the
site of a friendly fire incident he reported on," CBS noted in a
story, posted on its Web site yesterday, captioned "Where's Geraldo?
Nowhere near site of U.S. casualties, as he claimed."
Indeed, on Dec. 6, Mr. Rivera told his viewers he was in
Kandahar, on the "hallowed" spot where three Americans had been
killed the day before. But Baltimore Sun television columnist David
Folkenflik called him on it, eventually getting Mr. Rivera to concede
via satellite phone that he had been to the north in Tora Bora �
confused, he said, "by the fog of war."
Some of his critics weighed in. National Public Radio called
it "a firing offense" while ABC suggested, "You'd want to correct any
mistake immediately."
A Poynter Institute analyst said, "Geraldo Rivera and Fox News
owe their viewers a substantive explanation of what this means,
journalistically and ethically."
Fox dismisses it all. "Geraldo has 'fessed up to his mistake.
This is simply the Sun's attempt to advance a story which was already
dead on arrival," said a Fox News Channel spokesman yesterday.
Canny viewers had much to say as well. "Liberals eat themselves
and each other," wrote one observer at news Web site www.lucianne.com
yesterday. "This is more attempting to bash Fox News than anything
else."
Mr. Rivera has caught flak, meanwhile, for carrying a gun, an
act that might be misinterpreted as hostile in war-torn Afghanistan
and endanger the lives of other correspondents.
But guns fit the Fox News image, at least according to Vanity
Fair's James Wolcott, who recently wrote, "Geraldo Rivera and the
Viagra posse at Fox News refilled their gas bags and began taking
turns on Mussolini's balcony to exhort the mob."
When asked to elaborate on CNN, Mr. Wolcott said, "They're doing
everything but renting their own helicopters and, you know, firing
rockets."
Not all is acrimonious, however. A bemused Terry Eastland of the
Weekly Standard noted that Mr. Rivera appeared � unnoticed and
uncredited � in full cowboy-correspondent regalia in the background
of a photograph by Kevin Frayer of the Canadian Press, featured
prominently in Monday's editions of The Washington Post.
"Who can believe the editors at the Post foreign desk failed to
see Geraldo?" Mr. Eastland asked yesterday. "The war on terrorism is
deadly serious. Diversions are few," Mr. Eastland wrote. "Kevin
Frayer has � with or without Geraldo's help � provided one."
------------------------
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