Geraldo Rivera, In the Heat of Battle

By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 24, 2001; Page C01

Geraldo Rivera is offering to resign from Fox News.

If, that is, a panel of media analysts decides he did anything unethical in Afghanistan. Which, he insists, is ridiculous.

Rivera acknowledges that he made an "honest mistake" by saying he was at a "friendly fire" incident in which three American soldiers were killed in a U.S. bombing raid. He was hundreds of miles away, near what he maintains was a second such incident in which two or three Afghan opposition fighters were killed.

Rivera denounces the Baltimore Sun television writer who reported the mistake, saying: "The whole basic premise that I lied or was dishonest is absurd on its face, and were it any other reporter, would not even pass the laugh test. This is the most false, hideously absurd allegation I've ever had leveled against me."

Sun writer David Folkenflik "has slandered a journalist who is an honest person and has contributed arguably much more to American society than he has," Rivera says. "This cannot stand. He has impugned my honor. It is as if he slapped me in the face and challenged me to a duel. He is going to regret this story for the rest of his career."

Folkenflik says he was "very careful" in framing the story and could find no military official or journalist in the region who could confirm Rivera's account. "I don't know how many bites of the apple he gets to get a version that works," Folkenflik says. "There may be an explanation for this that bears up to scrutiny, but we haven't seen it."

The day after the Dec. 5 incident, Rivera told viewers he had walked the "hallowed ground" where the Americans had died: "The whole place just fried really and bits of uniforms and tattered clothing everywhere. I said the Lord's Prayer and really choked up."

But Rivera was at Tora Bora, while the Americans died near distant Kandahar; Rivera says he "confused" the incidents. (Folkenflik quoted a Pentagon official as saying a friendly-fire incident at Tora Bora took place three days after Rivera's report; Rivera says that was entirely separate.)

Rivera also accuses CNN of "malignant hypocrisy" for covering the dispute, saying that anchor Aaron Brown's report "made me want to puke." Brown says he is "comfortable" with "a fair airing of what I believe is a legitimate controversy. There is no doubt in my mind, zero doubt, that if the shoe were on the other foot . . . Fox would be all over me like a rash."

Rivera says he has unaired footage of the carnage and that if a journalistic panel backs him up, Folkenflik should resign. "The time has come to stop the Geraldo-bashing," he declares.

Folkenflik says Fox treated his questions as almost "illegitimate. . . . They've made the response rather personal."

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2001

Answers

Oddly enough, I dislike that Aaron Brown person a lot more than I dislike Geraldo. I saw his report on Geraldo and it reeked with spite--Brown was positively gloating. Besides, his hair dye is too dark.

-- Anonymous, December 24, 2001