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| DUELING IMAGES | |
 April 24, 2000 
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The Elian Gonzalez story played out in the press in a series of dueling images and reactions after the 6-year-old was seized by federal agents and returned to his father. Media correspondent Terence Smith looks at the media coverage of Elian. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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 TERENCE
SMITH: After months of staking out the Gonzalez family home in Miami's
Little Havana, the moment the media had been waiting for was over in less
than three minutes. Cameras outside the home caught the pandemonium as
federal  agents
rushed little Elian into a van, and away. Networks quickly broadcast that
scene, but their earlier efforts to place a pool camera inside the house
went awry. During the raid on the home, federal agents intercepted the
camera crew in the yard. The crew claimed later that an agent broke their
camera cord and even struck one of them with a gun.
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| A headline-grabbing story | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARISLEYSIS GONZALEZ: Look how short the hair looks when he was taken out of the house. And look how long the hair is in the picture that they show today. That is not Elian smiling. |
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| Playing out on the editorial page, too | ||||||||||||||||||||
TERENCE SMITH: But the Associated Press later confirmed
that the photos, and others released later, were genuine. Just as editors
had weighed fairness in choosing which photos to emphasize, editorial
page writers wrestled with their own sense of right and wrong. The Boston
Globe and others supported the government's move, describing it as
"justice," while the New York Times came down hard on
Attorney General Janet Reno for ordering what they called a "precipitous
raid." 
This came after weeks in which the paper pressed the attorney general
to take action to reunite father and son. And in the Midwest, the Chicago
Tribune's editorial |
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The
only coverage inside was the camera of Associated Press photographer
Alan Diaz. Invited in by the family, he caught the image that, for many,
has already come to symbolize the Elian saga. That photo, plus this
happier reunion scene, taken in private later Saturday at Andrews Air
Force Base 
outside
Washington and distributed by the father's lawyer, quickly framed the
media debate over whether the government had done the right thing. 
The
story predictably dominated the nation's Sunday newspapers. The Miami
Herald, which at times has devoted as many as 31 reporters to this
story, used this huge headline atop what has become known as the rescue
picture of Elian being hustled out of the house. Below the fold they
ran the more ominous shot of an INS border patrol agent brandishing
a gun. 
The
New York Times focused instead on the so-called family reunion
photo on page 1. The paper ran a cropped version of the gun-toting agent
on page 14. On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times gave 
the
two images equal play, as did the Washington Post, which emphasized
the reunion that took place in its backyard. As the story was evolving,
Time magazine went to press, playing up Elian and his papa. Newsweek
went inside the raid. 
The
still photos of the seemingly happy father and son were challenged in
a Sunday news conference by Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, who
contended that they had been doctored. 
cartoonist,
Jeff McNelly, took this slant. Today, the media scrum continued its
wait for a glimpse of 6-year-old Elian outside the gates of Andrews
Air Force Base. The crowd suggested that the Elian story is far from
over.
