Geraldo Rivera was born on July 4, 1943, in New York City to a Puerto Rican father, Cruz Rivera, and a Jewish mother, Lillian Friedman14. Rivera's father worked in sugar cane fields and odd jobs in Puerto Rico before moving to New York, where he met Lillian while working as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Times Square1. Rivera grew up in Brooklyn and West Babylon, New York, where his family sometimes faced prejudice and racism due to their mixed heritage4. His mother even changed the spelling of their surname to "Riviera" on Geraldo's birth certificate in an attempt to avoid discrimination4. Rivera attended the State University of New York Maritime College and later transferred to the University of Arizona, where he received a B.S. in business administration4. He then went on to earn a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School near the top of his class in 19694. Rivera's diverse background and experiences growing up as a Latino-Jewish American would go on to shape his perspective and influence his career as a journalist and media personality134.

Geraldo Rivera began his journalistic career as a reporter for WABC-TV in New York in 1970, quickly making a name for himself in investigative journalism1. His groundbreaking work on the "Drug Crisis in East Harlem" series earned him the New York State Associated Press Broadcaster Association Award in 1971, making him the first Hispanic to receive this honor1. Rivera's success continued as he became the first Hispanic to be named Broadcaster of the Year in both 1972 and 19741. During his time at WABC-TV, Rivera's reporting on the abuse of patients at Willowbrook State School, a New York institution for the mentally ill, earned him a prestigious Peabody Award in 1972, further cementing his reputation as a skilled investigative journalist4.

"The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults" was a highly anticipated live television special hosted by Geraldo Rivera on April 21, 1986. The two-hour event centered around the opening of a supposedly secret vault in Chicago's Lexington Hotel, once owned by notorious gangster Al Capone4. Despite the presence of IRS agents, a medical examiner, and intense media hype, the vault revealed nothing but dirt and empty bottles when opened24. The special garnered massive ratings, with an estimated 30 million viewers tuning in, making it the highest-rated syndicated television special in history at the time41. However, the anticlimactic result became infamous, with Rivera later admitting, "Seems like we struck out"4. The event inadvertently launched a new form of speculative news programming, where the anticipation of potential news became the focus rather than actual reporting4.

Geraldo Rivera's eponymous daytime talk show "Geraldo" ran for eleven seasons from 1987 to 1998, becoming notorious for its controversial and sensationalist content2. The show gained infamy for an incident on November 3, 1988, when a brawl broke out between white supremacists and civil rights activists during a taping2. In the melee, Rivera's nose was broken after being struck by a chair24. This event, while criticized, significantly boosted the show's ratings2. "Geraldo" became emblematic of the "Trash TV" era, featuring provocative topics and confrontational guests in an attempt to outdo competing talk shows1. Despite its controversial nature, the program's long run and Rivera's ability to generate headlines solidified his status as a polarizing figure in American media3.