Sawyer Soldiers On, Omitting One Little Item

It’s always something.

I was out of town when news broke this week about Diane Sawyer standing on her head during her interview with Elian Gonzalez. Naturally I rushed back to Los Angeles.

The other news: As they played together, Elian stood on his head, too.

I was already aware of Sawyer’s grittiness as a reporter, having watched with admiration several years ago as ABC telecast her story about the Dilleys sextuplets that featured pictures of her bathing these kiddies and changing their diapers, after which she sighed: “A journalist gotta do what a journalist gotta do.”

That took guts.

As did her taped interview with Elian, given that it ran this week, on “Good Morning America” and “20/20,” against a background of increased volatility:

* Conflict over Elian’s status was growing by the hour, leading to a potential face-off between the U.S. government and Miami relatives of 6-year-old Elian, who was rescued from the sea Thanksgiving day after the boat carrying him capsized, killing his mother and 10 other Cuban refugees.

* Calling the statement too incendiary to air, ABC acknowledged omitting Elian telling Sawyer that he did not want to return to Cuba from the earlier “Good Morning America” installments of the interview.

* The Virgin Mary is now interceding in the case. Based on some media reports, Elian’s relatives claim that the Virgin Mary has repeatedly appeared to them on the boy’s bedroom mirror, causing his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, to weep with joy.

Sawyer took some heat for her sextuplets story, and I knew the wolves would be after her this time, too. So I called my ABC insider friend, Nate, to see if there was something I could do.

“A favorable column would help,” Nate said.

“Just say the word,” I told him.

“For one thing,” Nate said, “everyone is conveniently leaving out the fact that this is the very first time Diane stood on her head during an interview. We’ve checked. Absolutely the first time. Has everyone forgotten that she didn’t stand on her head while interviewing President Clinton, Fidel Castro, Gen. Manuel Noriega, Mark Fuhrman or Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano?”

“The restraint of a pro,” I echoed. “But speaking of omissions, just to clear the air, was it ethical for ‘Good Morning America’ to edit out Elian’s comment that he didn’t want to return to Cuba, where his father lives?”

“Absolutely ethical,” Nate said. “If we had included Elian saying that, the boy’s family in Cuba would have exploited it and used it for political propaganda.”

ABC’s vision and excellent judgment in manipulating the news blew me away. Yet I did wonder why, after being widely criticized for the omission, ABC had Sawyer on Wednesday, during “20/20,” go ahead and repeat Elian’s words about rejecting return to Cuba, saying he told her in Spanish that he fears his father will “take me to Cuba, and I don’t want to go to Cuba.” It seemed to me that ABC’s narrow-minded critics might see that as inconsistent and buckling under pressure.

“That’s because they don’t understand the importance and nature of lips,” Nate answered.

“Lips? You mean some lips are more exploitable than others?”

“Exactly,” Nate said. “Diane’s a pro, with a pro’s lips. Very, very hard to exploit. And when she’s doing a voice-over, her lips are impenetrable, a regular fortress.”

I was relieved to hear that clarification. “But speaking of exploitation--and I’m just playing devil’s advocate--isn’t there something unsavory and destructive about Elian’s Miami family pitching him to TV shows as some kind of traveling exhibit? And then you compounding it by extending the interview to ‘20/20’ and bringing on some shrink to publicly psychoanalyze this little 6-year-old on national TV? After all, NBC’s ‘Today’ reportedly turned him down.”

Nate was losing patience. “With Diane out of the equation, you might have an issue. But she related to Elian in a way that no one else could. The empathy. The genuine affection. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer would never stand on their heads like that.”

He had a point. And I began to see just how bold ABC had been in securing this interview of Elian at a time when his story was ever more fluid, with a growing number of Cuban Americans in Little Havana indicating that they will not relinquish him under any circumstances. In other words, Elian could remain there indefinitely.

“Not if we have anything to do about it,” Nate said, mysteriously.

“Then the rumors are true about ABC secretly planning an Entebbe-style raid?”

“Uh, huh.”

“Led by anchors and hosts from Barbara Walters to Regis Philbin?”

“You didn’t hear it from me,” Nate whispered.

There was one more report I wanted to nail down before writing my column praising ABC. “Those stories about former ‘Good Morning America’ host Joan Lunden appearing in Diane’s bedroom mirror?”

“All true,” Nate said.

“And still Diane carries on. What a trouper she is.”

“You know how it is,” Nate said. “A journalist gotta do what a journalist gotta do.”

*

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.