PressEthic

When I sat down on the B train Thursday, Geraldo Rivera was staring back at me. The smile, the 'stache and the slogan: "News with Passion."

I kept looking at the ad (partially because it distracted me from the guy at the other end of the car who was trying to start a slow clap for no apparent reason, but I digress). I first dismissed it as more of the same pseudo-news from Fox. But wasn't passionate reporting the new journalistic rallying cry after Anderson Cooper's Katrina coverage?

Then it was a good thing. But in the hands of Geraldo, it just doesn't seem right.

It also doesn't seem right that he considers himself the second coming of journalistic deities like Murrow.

"I think you could draw an absolute arc," said Rivera. "At the beginning of that line -- above the line -- is Edward R. Murrow, 'Harvest of Shame' and the Joe McCarthy stuff." The arc continues "to me," Rivera said...

Definitely. Al Capone's empty vault and the McCarthy broadcasts - can't think of one without the other.

It's easy to pick on Geraldo, but borne of his "news with passion" is an important caveat of passionate reporting: Not everyone can do it.

Anderson Cooper was praised for his impassioned coverage because he's a hell of a reporter. Edward Murrow, well, that one doesn't need explaining. Passionate reporting is kept on safe ground by journalists who are intelligent enough to assimilate the notebooks full of information they've gathered, and intelligent enough to know the difference between subjective and biased (and there is a difference). Learn enough, and you have the wiggle room to make an assessment - carefully. There are plenty of journalists who fit that description.

But that guy on the train isn't one of them.