Geraldo quits NBC, joins Fox

After seven years of attempting to garner legitimacy and respect among his NBC colleagues as a bona fide journalist, Geraldo Rivera is leaving the network and its CNBC cable outlet to join Fox News Channel as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, Fox News announced Thursday. His last Rivera Live talk show on CNBC will air on Nov. 16. In a statement prepared for the NBC show, Rivera said, “I’m a reporter, and this fight against terror is the biggest story of our times. I can’t stay anchored to this desk any longer. … I’m not the same guy I was before the maniacs tried to tear our hearts out.” Rivera still had two years left on his $4-million-per-year contract when he asked NBC to let him out of it. The network apparently obliged without objection. Terms of his deal with Fox were not announced, although today’s New York Times quoted Rivera as saying that he would be taking a “significant but not substantial pay cut.” Moreover, as Broadcasting & Cable reported in its story about Rivera‘s switch, “It’s not clear how the historically liberal Rivera will mesh with Fox News’s “fair and balanced’ approach.” CNBC indicated that it planned to replace the Rivera show with additional business coverage.