Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

           In January 2005, just days after the former famed prison journalist Wilbert Rideau was released from the Louisiana prison system, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts had this to say about the release: “It makes Wilbert Rideau a rather odd icon of racial progress or the lack thereof. He is a human balancing act, victimizer and victim wrapped in one skin. Because of that, he forces those of us who understand the vulnerabilities of black people in a color-coded system to do a balancing act of our own … You can’t embrace him, yet you can’t quite push him away.”

            I have posted recent pieces about the incestuous relationship the former award-winning convict editor has with National Public Radio which has abandoned the basic principles of professional journalism in a concerted effort to force the general public to “embrace” Rideau. NPR took this effort to the unconscionable extreme of contacting the National Association of Black Journalists for an explanation as to why Rideau has not been invited to address the group at its upcoming convention. NABJ President Kathy Y. Times responded to the inquiry: “Our program is incomplete. The program committee is still working on invitations.”

            It is one thing for a media organization to report the news and even highlight extraordinary individual achievements but quite another to try to pressure an independent media organization to invite someone to speak before the group. Perhaps the NABJ has the same problem with Rideau expressed by Leonard Pitts: “ … Rideau is not the 19-year-old who committed a senseless crime four decades ago. It’s easy to understand why some would celebrate his freedom … But me, I keep circling like a homing pigeon back to an immutable fact. He killed somebody. There isn’t enough rehabilitation in the world to minimize that act.”

            Rideau has repeatedly lamented the fact that he’s been unable to secure employment with any media organization since his release from prison. The simple truth is that Rideau was never truly a “journalist” in any real sense of the word. He was just a “convict editor” of a prison publication that produced a brand of “journalism” not really acceptable in the real world. Rideau’s memoir, In The Place of Justice (Random House 2010), offers clear and convincing evidence that he is not a writer and more importantly that he is not a “journalist” who respects the facts and truth.

            Wilbert Rideau was a good “prison story” as the “nation’s most rehabilitated prisoner.” But that didn’t make him a “journalist.” He was just an extraordinary inmate. It took him five years to write his memoir and he had to have the Soros Foundation underwrite that literary endeavor with a $75,000 grant. Rideau has never produced a single piece of literary work without some assistance from someone else either in prison or in the free world.

            And it is a professional disgrace now for NPR to try to not only foist Rideau off on the general public as something he is not but to pressure the NABJ to give him an invite to the group’s convention. And even if the NABJ succumbs to NPR’s pressure tactics, Rideau’s invitation the group would not be authentic – it would be a token invite from NABJ just to satisfy the pressure.

            But Rideau doesn’t care. He would appear before the group, assuming the role as “king of the day.” He will speak about exaggerated accomplishments while in prison and lament how hard it’s been to adjust to the free world. It will be vintage Rideau—the victim turned hero.