The date: July 25th at 6:35pm
The place: 89th & 5th
Sighted: Waiting for a friend I happen to see a big ol' Bentley pull up to the stop light with an NYPD license plate. I think to myself "what the f**k, I need to become a police officer?" As the car pulls away from the light I see a very stressed out looking Geraldo Rivera behind the wheel. Couldn't help but notice his overgrown 'stache.
Geraldo Rivera's Fox-syndicated show Geraldo at Large has been cancelled, though it will be reincarnated on weekends for the Fox News Channel and retitled At Large with Geraldo Rivera (thus admitting that Mr. Rivera has forever lost first-name recognition status). Sadly this might mean the reconfiguration of the At Large website to lose "The G Spot," supposedly Geraldo's blog but really just a collection of show summaries cobbled together by an unfortunate PA. Appropriately enough, Rivera himself is nowhere near this G-spot nor, one imagines, any other.
Philadelphia Will Do directs us to this video of crusading journalist Geraldo Rivera visiting the City of Brotherly Love to investigate a plot to whack him. It's pretty much what you'd expect (i.e., a lot of Italian guys with whiny voices yelling, "Hey, get outta my face") but what struck us when watching was this: Why do we need the Philly mob to put a hit on Geraldo? We're New York Fuckin' City, our mob can kick your mob's ass. This sixth borough shit is getting out of control.
Figments of Alessandra Stanley's imagination, mostly.
Tucked down at the bottom of today's Times corrections, Geraldo finally gets his day:
From its inception, we've mocked CBS News's non-opinionated, non-bloggy, non-ombudsman new ombudsman blog. But maybe we were too harsh on the Public Eye crew, joking that they'd be unveiling the behind-the-scenes workings of the CBS News programs no one watches in the first place. It turns out that they'll take a look at major media issues occurring in other outlets, too, and yesterday they weighed in on the raging did-Geraldo-nudge-someone? debate at the Times.
• Stories like the Katrina aftermath are much better in print, so long as print's still around to tell them, says print reporter David Carr. [NYT]
• Moss's mistake wasn't doing the blow. It was getting into a fight with a London tab in the first place. [IHT]
• More Dumenican yuks about the fall media offerings. Such as: In wake of TimesSelect, "the Times starts a program offering to pay online readers $49.95 a year to skim 'Metropolitan Diary items about the adorable stuff that Manhattan tots say and do on city buses to amuse the elderly and infirm. (Anticipated revenue stream: Google AdSense ads for Depends and Ensure.)" [Ad Age]
• Forthcoming Dylan documentary by Martin Scorsese shows, sadly but unsurprisingly, that reporters can be humorless nitwits. [E&P]
• Even NYT ombudsman Barney Calame says Geraldo's right and Alessandra's wrong. Big surprise. [NYT]
• It's odd, jack, to see meathead brother Oddjack in a Q&A that does not involve him insulting anyone. [PR Week]
In a Sept. 5 analysis of Katrina coverage, Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote:
· Comedian Eddie Griffin's new Miramax-produced movie, Dysfunktional Family is facing complaints from the Sikh community over a scene in which Griffin compares a Sikh man to Osama bin Laden. Expect more controversy from other groups; Griffin also says that he could find bin Laden with "five Bloods, five Crips, four Mexicans and three rednecks." [Page Six]
· The May issue of Vanity Fair has a piece suggesting that JFK Jr. is the bastard son of Gianni Agnelli. [Page Six]
· Ed Gernon, executive producer of the CBS movie Hitler: The Rise of Evil, says the film is a cautionary tale for the American people during the Bush administration. [Page Six]
· Paris Hilton's former chef says that Paris mistreats her chihuahua, Tinkerbell: "Paris needs to take responsibility and care for her dogs...they're not fashion accessories." Paris: "they're not?" [Ed. noteokay, so Paris didn't actually say that, but I'm sure she was thinking it.] [Page Six]
· Seventeen is in trouble for photoshopping Sarah Michelle Gellar's covershot to the extent that "It looks like an alien foot attached to her arm." [Page Six]
· Financier John Gutfreund's wife and son, J.P. are starting a line of leisure wear. [Cindy Adams]
· An ex-commando who was in Afghanistan says it's not surprising that Geraldo Rivera got kicked out of Iraq for broadcasting troop movements, because he's put military personnel at risk before: "We had two-and three-man sniper teams hiding out in the mountains. Geraldo found out about it from the [anti-Taliban] mujahedeen soldiers. We were paying them between $25 and $100 a month. Geraldo put the word out that he would pay any Afghan who deserted the U.S. Army $100 a day to point out where the snipers were so he could get pictures of them...Here are a couple of snipers hidden in this cave, and Geraldo comes prancing up." [NY Daily News]
Buried in a CNN article on Iraqi chemical weapons use: "U.S. military officials say Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera will be expelled from Iraq after violating the cardinal rule of war reporting Monday by giving away crucial details of future military operations during a live broadcast."
U.S. targets 'Chemical Ali' [CNN via Romenesko]
