Radio station to 'wake up' U.S. with Elian billboards
By Elaine De Valle. edevalle@herald.com. From Elian;s Saga. Published Saturday, May 27, 2000, in the Miami Herald
A Miami Cuban radio station, trying to sway public opinion in the Elian Gonzalez custody clash, is launching a national billboard campaign.
Next month, 25 billboards denouncing the federal raid that took the boy from his family's Little Havana home will go up outside 22 major U.S. airports, as well as in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, a Miami radio station announced this week.
The campaign is called ``Wake Up America.''
``We want to reach the Anglo and African-American people so they understand the problem of Elian and what really happened,'' said Jorge Rodriguez, owner of WWFE La Poderosa (670 AM).
``We want to show them that there is an injustice being committed against the boy, first in the violent form they took him out of the home, and secondly in the way they intend to send him back to a totalitarian system where there are no parental rights.''
The first billboards will show the now-famous photograph of Elian in front of a helmeted Border Patrol agent brandishing a submachine gun, accompanied by a quote from Thomas Jefferson: ``The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. The hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin
them.''
Leasing the billboards for one month costs $228,000, Rodriguez said. But he believes the station can raise the money. They have collected nearly $60,000 so far, mostly small donations by radio listeners. ``We got 74 checks today,'' Rodriguez said at 2 p.m. Friday.
He says Cuban Americans in some of the target cities -- including New York, Washington, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco and Little Rock, capital of President Bill Clinton's home state -- will help pay for the billboards.
Carlos D'Mant, host of the 4 p.m. Rush Hour talk show, said he came up with the idea after hearing from frustrated listeners who could not understand why the American public would support the federal raid, as well as returning the rafter boy to Cuba with his father. Elian, who left Cuba with his
mother, was found at sea on Thanksgiving Day. His mother drowned in the voyage.
``The listeners were frustrated,'' said D'Mant, who presented the plan on the air and was surprised by the response. ``I didn't expect it to take off so well.''
People are walking in with donations topping about $7,000 a day, D'Mant said. ``They range from $2 to the biggest so far, $500.'' The station has also been approached by other stations about a radio marathon.
Since the station can be heard and seen through the Internet, people also called from other states, D'Mant said.
And that was the point -- to take the message to middle America.
``I don't need anyone to give me four free billboards in Hialeah,'' D'Mant said. ``That's not where we need the message to go. I have nothing to sell there.''
The first billboards are expected to go up as soon as June 3, but Rodriguez said the idea is to lease them for six months and change the message periodically: ``We want to have a different message almost every month.'' Other quotes tacked on to the AP photo of the raid belong to Martin Luther
King Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
The station and other exile groups have used advertising to try to sway public opinion before.
Billboards were leased in Canada and Spain to discourage tourism to the communist island and also at the Atlanta Olympics to send a message to Cuban delegates.
La Poderosa also was behind a campaign of postcards bearing the image of Elian and his mother which were addressed to the White House.
Cuba subject raises eyebrows, not wrath
Published Monday, May 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Ah, Memorial Day: Summertime, and the livin's easy.
Well, perhaps there was an uneasy moment at a recent meeting of the Beacon Council, Miami's development agency.
The subject was the Cuban embargo, the local debate that is usually limited to: How can it be tightened?
Gregory Swienton begs to differ. The new president at Ryder System, at the Beacon Council meeting, commented that the embargo's end will force Cuba to change, according to World City Business.
Executives elsewhere have said much the same thing for years, but not in Miami.
Herman Echeverria, a Cuban American and Beacon leader, was next up. But the discourse was both civic and civil. Echeverria said he respected Swienton's right to his opinion, but ``respectfully disagreed.''
Normally such diplomatic niceties aren't news, but this was in Miami.
A NET E-RROR
Gov. Jeb Bush was hosting a ``cyber town hall meeting,'' and at www.flgov.com he explained, ``People have often referred to me as the E-Governor, and this is a title I do not take lightly.''
Perhaps. But next to Bush's smiling face was an entry for ``IT Florida,'' with news on the state's information technologies prowess. Push it and get, ``SITE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.''
So we did. Still down.
By late afternoon, however, someone -- perhaps the E-Governor -- had fixed it.
SUNK COSTS
If Mike Egan has a sinking feeling, it may be from his portfolio.
The Broward business icon sold Alamo Rent-A-Car to Wayne Huizenga's Republic Industries for a ton of stock whenRepublic shares were at $30.
All downhill from there. Republic, the parent of AutoNation, today goes for about $8.
Egan also sank a bundle in theglobe.com, where he's still chairman. Its first day of trading, theglobe was out of this world, hitting $97. It has since fallen to Earth and trades around $1.50.
WILL WEEK BE WEAK?
Today's a holiday, but tomorrow it's back to the grind.
Consumer confidence comes out Tuesday, and a strong reading could lead the Fed to raise rates. Wednesday is the Leading Economic Indicators, and a strong reading could lead the Fed to raise rates. Friday there's the unemployment rate and -- you know the rest.
Suggestion: If low unemployment worries the Fed so much, why not pay some of us to quit? It'd help fight inflation.
Besides, it's summertime.
-- With John Dorschner
@herald.com or call 305-376-3608.
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