arts & entertainment _
Geraldo bids 'Good Night America with late night show
May 1,1975
From Excerpt
“It’s not at all like the Tonight
Show.
"It’s more like the Tomorrow
Show, except that, hopefully, it’s
broader-based than that, because we
see a lot more location stuff.
"It’s not a talk show.
"It’s not strictly a 60 Minutes type
program either.
"It’s a combination of those
things with something of the old
American dream machine thrown
in.”
It is Good Night America, the seri
ous talk show that started as an occa
sional feature of ABC’s Wide World
of Entertainment and that has ABC
executives wanting to air it more
regularly.
The talk show with pronounced
informality.
The show that fares well in the
Nielsen ratings.
Geraldo Rivera
The person describing Good Night
America is Geraldo Rivera, the
show’s host and the man whose “own
little production company” puts the
show together.
The man who was bom of a Jewish
father and a Puerto Rican father, and
who, 2,000 local broadcasts ago, was
hired as the token Puerto Rican by
WABC Eyewitness News in New
York.
The man who has five radio com
mentaries to write and a local news
story to do that day, but who still
takes a few minutes of his time to
explain how Good Night America
operates, what philosophy he and his
staff try to follow and why he devoted
an entire 90-minute show to argue the
need to reopen the investigation into
the assassination of President John
Kennedy.
News Magazine
In the opening of his show, Rivera
calls Good Night America a “sec
ond-generation news magazine.”
But, on the other end of the tele
phone wire, in his basement office of
the ABC News building in New
York, Rivera says he is not quite sure
what kind of show Good N ight Amer
ica is, except that maybe it is a con
glomeration that we kind of invented
... it’s terribly free-wheeling.”
Free-wheeling means considering
whatever topics he and his staff of
“about half a dozen people,” all
younger than the 31 -year-old Rivera,
consider interesting.
Free-wheeling enough to make
ABC executives “curiously schizo
phrenic” about some of the poten
tially controversial subjects the show
presents: schizophrenic because they
like the success of the show, but
worry about the possibility of law
suits.
Goes places
“They realize that the reason
people watch Good Night America is
because it goes places where other
shows haven’t gone before, so they
like that,” Rivera says. ‘‘Butthen.on
the other hand, as soon as you get into
something controversial, they always
assign a dozen lawyers to make sure
you’re not going to get sued.”
For example, he $pys, he ran a
great risk of being sued by the family
of Abraham Zapruder for showing a
copy of the Zapruder’s home movies
showing the assassination of Presi
dent Kennedy.
Commission report on the assassina
tion, Rivera showed the film, but not
before ABC made him sign a paper
indemnifying them in case of a law
suit, he says.
Public domain
“Our position was that that film
was, and certainly should be, in the
public domain,” he says. “That a
film, probably the most significant
historical document of this century,
‘The range we get in letters - and that’s
really the only positive feedback I get -
the live audience isn’t really represen
tative of the television audience - the
letters indicate a broad spectrum of
reasons and that’s cool, that’s cool. I
just hope thatpeople take a little away
with them. I hope that in some way the
show is educational or informative
aside from being educational.’
—GerakJo
Rivera says he got the film from
Robert Grodcn, who “got it from a
film laboratory in Los Angeles. I
think he said he originally printed it
from Time-Life. I’m not sure where
he got it.’’
In a show devoted entirely to argu
ing the need to dismiss the Warren
certainly the most significant histori
cal film of this century, can ’ t be copy
righted and it can’t be withheld from
the public. So we showed the film.”
The discussion resulted in a flood
of letters from viewers, Rivera says,
which resulted in the decision to do
the show.
“I think of myself as an active
journalist,” he says. ‘‘I think any
good journalist is interested in truth.
Truth is an absolute. You can’t de
stroy the truth so long as truth is your
goal, all that stuff about advocacy
and objectivity becomes moot.”
In an attempt to abide by this
advocacy journalism, Rivera says he
tries to do many things.
He tries to highlight realities that
need some attention. He tries to do
what other shows are not doing, not in
an attempt to “be offbeat, but just to
cover necessary corners that aren’t
being covered.”
He tries to do what he does best.
And what Rivera says Rivera does
best is to reDort about real life.
Real life
The real life of Lenny Bruce, inde
pendent of the Dustin Hoffman/ Val
eric Perrine image, accompanied by a
film documentary of Bruce and his
problems with drugs and the police,
and complete with Bruce's 19-year
old daughter Kitty as a guest.
The real life of drug abuse and
poverty in Harlem.
The real life of Clifford Irxings.
Rivera and his staff decide what
topics C> >d Night \mcrica will lea
lure. lion "the super frivolous to the
hoax and profound, this runs.i
legitimate 1 >tu he saj s ind ot ' on
' Inch he hopi. s he, an exp.md -olhai
Good Night America does not Pc
come a New Yoik based program.
“We know the things that an oi
interest to use, just the six ol us. We
Andy Manhart Daily Nebraskan
try to project from the theory — hope
fully the correct theory - that we are
representative of a large segment of
the population and the things that are
of interest to us are of some interest to
the people who are watching the pro
gram.”
Letters Rivera receives from read
ers seem to agree with him, he says,
because they represent a variety of
reasons for watching the show.
Positive feedback
‘ ‘The (ange we get in letters - and
that’s really the only positive feed
back I get -- the live audience isn’t
really representative of the television
audience - the letters indicate a
broad spectrum of reasons and that’s
cool,” he says, ‘‘that’s cool. 1 just
hope that people take a little away
with them. I hope that in some way
the show is educational or informa
tive aside from being educational.
If, on Good Night America, he
docs anything differently than other
talk or news show hosts, ‘‘it’s just
mavbc to look harder for those kinds
of topics that I think I can, in some
way way by presenting to the Ameri
can people, prick their consciences
and cause some kind of movement,
some kind of change on that issue
says Gcraldo Rivera, the man who
was a storefront lawyer before be
coming a broadcaster.
The man who says big breaks
don’t exist, but if they did, his would
be being hired by WABC in 1970,
because before that he never had any
intentions of being on television.
The man who believes that, in
television journalism, “if you think
you can gimmick your way through
or think you can dazzle them with
your style or your footwork, you’re
just real wrong because you can do
that maybe with one shot, if you ’re on
television once, or five times, or ten
times, out wnen it s your me, wnen
it’s your career, that’s what you have
to do , I mean you have to work hard
or people will see right through you.
The man who can end an interview
by saying: “And ... I think I’d better
go to work now.”
The man who is Good Night
America.
Discomania
invades local
dance studios
Apr. 18, 1979
By Cheryl Kisling
If discomania has finally gotten
ahold of you and you don't want to
have two left fee' on the dance
floor, then it is time to consider
taking lessons.
There are many I ancoln studios
offering disco lessons and most are I
open timing the day and evcnim j
for the convenient d un. v
washing to K mi
See DISCO on tQ |