NAHJ 2009 Hall of Fame - Geraldo Rivera Acceptance Speech

National Association of Hispanic Journalists
27th Annual Convention and Media & Career Expo
Friday, June 26, 2009 - San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Geraldo Rivera, Host Geraldo at Large, Fox News Channel was inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame.

One of the most enduring figures in
television news, Geraldo Rivera is an
award-winning reporter, commentator,
author and currently senior
correspondent and host of Geraldo at
Large on FOX News Channel (FNC).
Rivera joined Fox News as a war correspondent in November 2001
and was immediately assigned to Afghanistan to cover Operation
Enduring Freedom and later to Bethlehem to cover the Israeli
Palestinian conflict; Iraq, Colombia, Pakistan, Sudan and Somalia
followed. Domestically, he covered the collapse of the Minneapolis
Bridge, the California wildfires and most memorably, the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina.
Rivera began his career as a reporter for WABC-TV in New York
where he presented a series exposing the deplorable conditions at
the Willowbrook State School for the mentally ill. These awardwinning
reports led to a government investigation and the
institution was eventually shut down.
Before becoming a member of the original cast of ABCs Good
Morning America, Rivera presented the first television broadcast
of the infamous Abraham Zapruder film of the assassination of
President John Kennedy as host of ABCs Good Night America.
He then began an eight-year association with ABCs 20/20 as an
investigative reporter. One of his hour-long reports, The Elvis
Cover-Up was for more than two decades 20/20s highest
rated shows. In 1987, Geraldo began producing and hosting The
Geraldo Rivera Show for 11 years.
The winner of the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy journalism award (his
third) for his NBC News documentary Women In Prison, and the
Scripps Howard Foundation national journalism award for Back
to Bedlam, Rivera has received more than 170 awards for
journalism, including the prestigious George Foster Peabody
Award, three national and seven local Emmys, two Columbia-
Dupont and two additional Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.
An attorney, Rivera is a graduate of the University of Arizona and
Brooklyn Law School and is the author of seven books, most
recently, His Panic, Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.
(CELEBRA 2008).

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• NAHJ
• Hall of Fame
• Geraldo Rivera Fox