Richard Valeriani
Richard Valeriani (born August 29, 1932) is a former White House correspondent and diplomatic correspondent with NBC News in the 1960s and 1970s. He previously covered the Civil Rights Movement for the network and was seriously injured when hit in the head with an ax handle at a demonstration in Marion, Alabama in 1965[1] in which Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed by Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler.[2]
In July 1962, he interviewed Marion King, the wife of Slater King, who had been beaten by policemen in Camilla, Georgia while trying to take clothes to jailed civil rights protesters from Albany, Georgia.[3]
Valeriani portrayed himself as a reporter for CNN from the deck of the French aircraft carrier Foch in the 1995 film Crimson Tide, providing the opening newscast which sets up the plot.
Comments on the movie Selma
As a participant in the events portrayed in the 2015 movie Selma, Valeriani considered the film excellent and substantially accurate in presenting the role of media such as Roy Reed of The New York Times, but found the role of television underplayed.[4]
References
- ↑ Davis, Townsend (1998), Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 121–123, ISBN 0-393-04592-7
- ↑ Fleming, John (6 March 2005), "The Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson", The Anniston Star, archived from the original on August 29, 2008, retrieved 2008-01-21
- ↑
- ↑ Nancy Doyle Palmer (March 7, 2015). "Selma and Richard Valeriani: A Reporter's Story". The Blog. HuffPost. Retrieved May 11, 2015.