PITTSBURGH, Pa.–Duquesne University students circulated a Facebook petition early last week, urging school administrators not to allow Geraldo Rivera to participate in an upcoming panel discussion marking the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.
By week’s end the petition had been signed by more than three thousand students, 30 percent of the total graduate and undergraduate enrollment at Duquesne, and school officials were obliged to dis-invite the controversial Fox News host.
Citing Mr. Rivera’s “apparently unstable persona” and the “unsavory self-photo he tweeted earlier this summer,” the student petition declared that Duquesne’ s reputation for “intellectual rigor and responsible behavior” would not be well served by Mr. Rivera’s presence on campus.
In a statement to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Duquesne University said that the photo was “inappropriate and inconsistent” with the Catholic school’s values.
“We warn our students not to put anything inappropriate on social media because of potential consequences—you could consider this teaching by example,” spokesperson Bridget Fare told the newspaper.
In the selfie—which was tweeted on July 21, 2013, at 1:00 a.m. and which appeared to have been shot in a by-the-hour motel in New Jersey—Mr. Rivera stood virtually naked in front of a mirror with a towel arranged far below his waist. The graininess of the photo, the sinister pink-tinted sunglasses he wore, and Mr. River’s advanced age‐he was seventy, for shit’s sake—gave an entire nation the willies.
“Eeeuuw,”said freshman education student Marcie Lewis. “He is so creepy looking in that selfie. He looked like somebody’s pervy grandfather getting out of the shower. Gross.”
“Is that guy a pimp in an assisted-living facility or what?” laughed senior psychology major Dan Mullins. “Those pink glasses and that mustache? If he were my grandfather, I’d be mighty embarrassed.”
Apart from being creeped out by Mr. Rivera, most of the students seemed unfamiliar with him. A few thought he was “some porn star from the ’70s.” Others thought he was a game show host.
In reality Mr. Rivera’s professional life has been scarcely more distinguished. Once a serious journalist—he earned a Peabody Award in 1972 for his report on the neglect and abuse of mentally retarded patients at Staten Island’s Willowbrook State School—he made himself a laughingstock with his April 1986 television fiasco “The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault.”
In this ill-fated adventure Mr. Rivera excavated what he had been told was the site of Al Capone’s buried treasure trove. The live, heavily hyped program ground on for hours, displacing regularly scheduled shows, as Mr. Rivera’s team penetrated the vault he was sure would yield the famed loot. (A medical examiner, who had been hired in case any bodies were found, stood by twiddling his thumbs, as did the show’s viewers.) Unfortunately, the vault contained only a few broken bottles. Nevertheless, Mr. Rivera held one of them aloft, enthusiastically proclaiming that it had once contained “bootleg moonshine gin.”
From there it was but a short misstep until “Geraldo,” a daytime talk show that traded in controversial guests and theatricality, and which inspired Newsweek and two United States senators to label it “Trash TV.” Highlights included an episode entitled “Men in Lace Panties and the Women Who Love Them” and an episode wherein Mr. Rivera’s nose was broken by a flying chair during a brawl among white supremacists, antiracist skinheads, black activists, and Jewish activists. Regular guests on “Geraldo” included LaToya Jackson, talking about the latest offenses to public decency committed by members of her family.
In 2001 during the War in Afghanistan, Mr. Rivera was mocked for a report in which he claimed to be at the scene of a friendly fire incident when he was actually three hundred miles away. He blamed a minor misunderstanding for the discrepancy.
Mr. River’s personal life has been cut from the same shabby cloth. Married five times, he has five children, four of them legitimate, one delivered by an unnamed Mexican woman.
Mr. Rivera could be reached for comment on this story, but we decided to go out for lunch instead.
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