NewsMax.com. Thursday June 8, 2000; 12:02 AM EDT. With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff.
The photo of a Clinton administration Border Patrol agent pointing a machine gun at little Elian Gonzalez as he cowers in Donato Dalrymple's arms is one of the most dramatic and revealing images in the history of photojournalism.
So why is the American media behaving as if it wishes Associated Press cameraman Alan Diaz never snagged the shot?
The day after the April 22 raid, major news operations like the New York Times, the Daily News, Newsweek, Time and others refused to run the sure-fire Pulitzer Prize winner on their covers.
Now a Miami radio station wants to put the photo on billboards across the country as part of its "Wake up America" ad campaign, a public relations effort aimed at heightening awareness about the brutality of the Easter weekend assault.
But the AP is balking, telling campaign organizers that they want to "remain neutral."
Carlos D'Mant, a commentator on Miami radio's WWFE and creator of the ad blitz, planned to caption the photo with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
"We spoke with [photographer] Alan Diaz and told him we would put 'courtesy of AP' as is normal, but apparently there is a political reason," WWFE owner Jorge Rodriguez told the Miami Herald.
After consulting with attorneys, D'Mant and Rodriguez settled on a plan to feature the photo as part of a collage of newspapers that did front-page the historic snapshot the day after the raid.
One of those papers would be, quite naturally, the Herald. But Herald editor Martin Baron isn't too keen on the idea either.
"We will have to consider whether this is an appropriate use of the front page of the Miami Herald. I have my doubts," he told his reporter, Elaine DeValle.
"We would be within our rights to prevent their use of an image of our front page if we so choose," Baron added.
D'Mant told the paper he was very disappointed. The campaign was set for launch on Tuesday, with deposits already paid on airport billboards in 20 U.S cities.
The folks at "Wake up America" aren't alone. When NewsMax.com ran a full-page ad featuring the famous Gonzalez photo in the May 3 edition of the New York Times, the AP strongly objected.
The fourth estate seems almost embarrassed by Diaz's historic Elian photo. Maybe that explains why journalists aren't up in arms over the beating of NBC cameraman Tony Zumbado and his soundman Gustavo Moeller by Reno's raiders, who thereby eliminated the only source for video coverage from
inside Elian's house.
Perhaps NBC's Andrea Mitchell inadvertently summed up the sentiments of her profession in an interview with radio's Don Imus just days before the raid. Anticipating an ugly confrontation, the prominent newswoman said, "Maybe it would be better if we all just left the scene and let the INS
do whatever it's going to do."
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