Geraldo Rivera

Geraldo Rivera is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist, attorney, and author whose career in American broadcasting has spanned more than five decades across prominent news organizations. After graduating from Brooklyn Law School with honors and earning a Reginald Heber Smith fellowship in poverty law, Rivera began his public career as a street lawyer for New York's urban poor, representing the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican activist group. This role led to his introduction to WABC's Eyewitness News, launching his broadcast career.

Rivera became nationally recognized for his report, "Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace," which exposed the treatment of patients with intellectual disabilities at Willowbrook State School on Staten Island. The story earned him a Peabody Award and contributed to the end of institutionalization policies for the developmentally disabled in the United States, prompting government investigations and the closure of similar institutions nationwide.

At ABC News, Rivera established a reputation as an investigative journalist. He was a member of the original cast of ABC's "Good Morning America," presented the first television broadcast of the Abraham Zapruder film of the assassination of President John Kennedy as host of ABC's "Good Night America," and began an eight-year tenure with ABC's "20/20" as an investigative reporter. His hour-long report, "The Elvis Cover-Up," was for more than two decades "20/20's" highest-rated show. After leaving ABC, Rivera produced "The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault," a two-hour live special that became the highest-rated syndicated show in history. Rivera was the first Hispanic to host a nationally syndicated talk show, "Geraldo," which ran for eleven years and became a defining program of its era.

Rivera's work as a television journalist includes coverage of major legal and political events. He led national coverage of the O.J. Simpson murders, and his "Rivera Live" program became the highest-rated show on CNBC. Following the September 11 attacks, Rivera joined Fox News as a senior war correspondent, reporting live from Afghanistan and returning multiple times to cover Operation Enduring Freedom. During his tenure at Fox News, he covered major stories including the Iraq War, the Michael Jackson trial, the Scott Peterson case, and natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Rivera has received more than 170 awards for journalism, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his NBC News documentary on "Women in Prison," the Scripps Howard Foundation national journalism award for "Back to Bedlam," the George Foster Peabody Award, three national and seven local Emmys, and two Columbia-DuPont Awards.

Rivera joined "The Five" as a rotating liberal co-host and later became a correspondent-at-large for NewsNation, appearing across the network's daytime and primetime programming. He is the author of eight books, including "His Panic" and "The Geraldo Show: A Memoir." Rivera's career is marked by investigative journalism, reporting from conflict zones, and contributions to American media and news reporting.