EDITORS DEFEND UNCEASING ELIAN COVERAGE

By: Steve Friess Tensions Over Cuban Boy Spilled Over Into Newsrooms



Not enough Eli?n Gonz?lez coverage? Many would say the opposite.


But this week editors from The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and the
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel defended their unceasing front-page
treatment of the international custody battle that has gripped the nation for
more than six months.



'I don't think we engaged in overkill,' insisted Mark Seibel, Miami
Herald assistant managing editor at a panel sponsored by the South Florida
chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of
Hispanic Journalists, and the National Association of Black Journalists. 'There
were lots and lots of angles that this story deserved, so I defend the media's
wretched excesses.'



If anything, Sun-Sentinel Miami Bureau Chief Dana Banker said, there were
so many stories to do as the complex, high-pitched drama unfolded that 'some
fundamental journalism' was overlooked early on. 'We should have taken a closer
look at the Gonz?lez family (in Miami) from earlier on,' Banker explained.
'That's something that was missed.'



One hole in coverage that the newspapers acknowledged was in consistently and
thoroughly explaining for Anglo-American readers what a Cuban child's life is
like. Banker said the Sun-Sentinel came closer, running several stories
early on describing lifestyles and attitudes on the Communist island. The
Herald, by contrast, is scorned by the Castro regime for its years of
pro-exile stances, and Seibel admitted that this lack of access impaired their
coverage.



One unexpected results of such an intense and culturally divergent story for
South Florida media was that even within the newsrooms, emotions ran high and
opinions clashed over whether the 6-year-old should remain with his Miami
relatives or reunite with his Cuban father.



Just as the issue split the Miami community between Cuban exiles and residents
of other ethnicities, tension boiled over in the newsroom at the Miami
Herald and El Nuevo Herald. Cuban-American employees complained to
management because Anglo-American and African-American staffers often muttered
derogatory comments about 'those crazy Cubans' who demanded the father and son
remain apart, said El Nuevo Herald and Miami Herald Reader
Representative B?rbara Guti?rrez. The result was a 'cathartic meeting' to
restore peace to the office.



'We had to remind everybody to be sensitive to the fact that this story has
touched people in different ways,' Guti?rrez said. 'Some Cuban-American
[journalists] were saying, 'I can't leave this story when I get home because my
mother is sick over it.''



The local media's biggest frustration was with the ongoing, sometimes bombastic
treatment of the story given by the 24-hour cable news channels. That pressured
local news outlets to keep reporting or remain on the air even when there was
nothing new to say, leading to some irresponsible speculation and some
journalists exposing their biases on TV, said Yvette Miley, assistant news
director for WTVJ-TV.



'If there was one new bit of news to report and we're trying to milk that into
six or seven hours of coverage, then we're opening ourselves up to mistakes,'
Miley said.



University of Miami journalism professor Ileana Oroza, who edited the
Herald's front page in the early months of the saga before leaving for
academia, agreed there was no overkill on the story, but she questioned whether
the screaming nature of the Herald and Sun-Sentinel's work was a
bit over-the-top.



'They were using end-of-the-world headlines when the world wasn't ending,' Oroza
said. 'But I kept wondering, what were they going to do when the world does come
to an end?'



Related story:



THE RAID' AND 'THE REUNION (04/28/00)