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UITUR Vol. XXI, No. 8
CABRINI COLLEGE, RADNOR, PA.
April 9, 1975
GeraldoRivera
Revolution witha twist by Mary Beth Senkewicz
Hardly the typical television reporter, Geraldo Rivera looked just that as he strolled across Cabrini's gymnasium floor to the podium the evening of March 11. With thick dark hair and a moustache, dressed in Lee blue jeans and a leather jacket, he could have been another college student. Yet beneath the casual and rather hip exterior, lies :a fiercely idealistic and concerned spirit. The program was well titled "An Evening with Geraldo Rivera," for his discourse covered a broad range of topics, and gave some fascinating insight into the mind behind the framed figure one sees on television. Rivera set the tone of the talk early in the evening when he said, "Compassion still exists and you can tap it ." His presentation indicated that his own deep compassion and fellow-feeling motivates him to do the work he does. Rivera is a reporter for ABC-TV's New York outlet, but he ¡wasn't always interested in that line of work . In 1966 he entered law school to avoid the draft , and while there he began to wonder how he could affect the poverty-stricken reality around him . As a student he was working at a storefront law office on 116th St . and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, the middle of Harlem. "The pits," he called it. "That is the worst block in the worst neighborhood in the worst slum in this hemisphere." He began to think that maybe law could be used as an instrument for social change - as a device for alleviating the misery of poor people. He was turned on by that idea, and was elated when he first began practicing. That elation soon turned into frustration and bitterness, however , as he saw the hopeless situation of a poor person "caught up in the machinery of our criminal jurisprudence system." He became extremely disillusioned about the effect he as a lawyer could have on the lives of the poor. He began to believe that he could never make a significant contribution; though he was certainly helping specific people, his work was only a "drop in the bucket." He wanted to efficiently and effectively change the way people live on a grand scale.
Geraldo Rivera at Cabrini. At this time (1969-70) Rivera was also representing radicals as well as poor people . He first came into contact with the media when he was thrust into the role of spokesman for his clients, the Young Lords, a New York gang. Gloria Rojas, then working for WCBS-TV , first gave him the idea that he might be able to use a television position to do the kinds of things he wanted to do. As it happened, all the major broadcasting companies were being pressured to hire minori ties, so ABC hired Rivera as a token Puerto Rican. He knew it, but it was an opportunity for him to implement his idea of using broadcast journalism as an instrument for social change. He ca lls himself a pragmatic idealist he has idealistic goals, but he knows he must work within the system to achieve them. After a seemingly endless number of frivolous assignments, Rivera finally got his break, ironically, while covering a fashion show in Greenwich Village. He and his crew captured on film the horrible plunge of a heroin junkie from a rooftop to the cracked sidewalk below. It was from the subsequent intervi ew with the suicide's junkie brother that the ABC brass realized that Rivera was weii acquainted with life on the street. He became the ghetto reporter. Since then, Rivera has dealt with a number of string social issues : the conditions of the mentally retarded patients at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island; the plight of the migratory farm workers on the East coast; the problems of the elderly, and babies born addicted to heroin. Dealing with these topics he has been able to come closer to the realization of his goals. (Continued on page 6)