Television Correspondent Washed out to Sea… I Wish

I have never been a big fan of Geraldo Rivera. When he was a young reporter way back in the 70s on WABC-TV news, he annoyed the heck out of me with his breathless reportage. “Chill out,” I'd think. Just calm down and tell me what happened. Then he took this whole bizarre turn into sensationalistic journalism. Then he annoyed the heck out of me with overwrought, tawdry accounts of the life of Charles Manson. A few years later, he annoyed the heck out of me with that whole Al Capone’s vault escapade. Weeks and weeks of hype, while we sat on the edges of our seats waiting for him to dig through layers and layers of nothing just to find even more layers of… nothing.

Now, the only time I see him on the air (he is on that network that I currently refuse to watch, except for notable events like this) is when he is deployed, along with the other poor schmucks, to some quivering piece of coastline where a hurricane is about to make landfall. Usually, he is in front of a levee, or a sea wall, or on a beach. The wind is beating up his normally perfect hair. One manly hand is grasping onto something because he can barely stand up straight.

And he’s loving every minute of it.

And, apparently he thinks that we’re supposed to be loving it, too.

But do we? Do Americans, jaded by an excess of popular culture, get excited by the prospect of someone putting himself (or herself) in mortal danger?

All you have to do is watch the ratings for shows like “Fear Factor” and its many copycats (The latest is the current phenomenon, “Toughest Jobs in America”) to know that the answer is a definite “yes.”

This is an odd phenomenon in our society. I think the Weather Channel started it all. Whenever some evil nasty from the sky was about to strike, they’d bundle up one of their reporters (often someone without much seniority) in conspicuously name-branded outerwear (usually a company that was one of their larger advertisers). They’d lash these intrepid young lads or lassies to something vertical while the blizzard, the tornado, the hurricane, or whatever Mother Nature could dish out pounded them, just so you, warm and toasty at home and curled up on your couch eating chips out of the bag, would know just what it was like to be out there firsthand.

I felt sorry for these poor people. This is the age of video recorders in ATM machines, of tiny spy cameras wired up at red lights to catch lawbreakers, and miniature cameras in our laptops. For Pete’s sake, couldn’t we just mount some kind of weather-proof camera atop a building or on a bridge and get a good look at what it’s doing outside without somebody risking their life to show you that it’s snowing?

But then I think that other networks started having weather envy. Why should the Weather Channel get all the points for bravado? Why should they be allowed to have the equivalent of broadcast orgasms every time a big storm comes along?

Then came Geraldo Rivera. Manly and fearless, his hair sprayed into a tousled mane. The hairs of his mustache combed perfectly straight and his eyeglasses shining with righteousness, standing with his bulging arms akimbo atop a sea wall like some Hemingway-esque hero. With no care for his own safety, mind you, and wearing his own conspicuously name-branded outer apparel, just to bring you, the viewer, the real news as it is happening!

Now, I am not making light of the seriousness of hurricanes. My heart goes out to all the people who lost loved ones or were displaced from their homes during not just Katrina but all of the storms that ravaged this country and others.

And I have no desire to see Geraldo Rivera nor any other news personality harmed by any idiotic event they might try to cover.

But I’m so sick of watching this guy jump into the fray during every storm just so he can hang on to some tree, or dock post, or other kind of vertical handhold, his hair dripping, his eyes shining, just so we viewers at home can see how dangerous it is and how brave he is being.

What would we do without this macho stud on the air, risking his life to tell us that the wind speed is now up to a whopping 80 miles an hour? Without him there was a microphone, yelling out, “Oh, my God, there’s someone in the water! Somebody fell into the water!” Only to find out that the guy who “fell” into the water was in the Coast Guard and he was trying to secure something to a dock, not flailing for his life.

It disturbs me a little bit to discover this about myself, but every time a hurricane comes along and Geraldo is doing the report, I’m praying for the elements.

I’m hoping – well, I would never wish for anyone’s death or injury – but I’m hoping just once to see him get knocked over a sea wall and have to crawl his way back over, his mustache drooping, looking like a drowned rat. And I want to be able to see it over, and over, and over again.

Whoever invented TiVo deserves a medal.