Although the day shaped up as one of the most significant since Elian was rescued at sea on Thanksgiving Day, local stations mostly held their updates until commercial breaks, causing little disruption to daytime game shows, talk programs and soap operas. The trend carried over into prime time. Early in the day, CNN was one of the few sources offering blanket reporting on every Elian move.
News directors say no.
Tim Geraghty, WTVJ-NBC 6's news director, said the Elian story is so well known that it now lends itself to short updates rather than blanket coverage. However, when it became apparent that Attorney General Janet Reno would meet with Elian and his Miami family at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, Channel 6 dumped the Rosie O'Donnell Show at 4 p.m. to update the story. Other stations stuck to their afternoon programming. That's in sharp contrast to television coverage Jan. 26, when Elian's grandmothers were due to arrive at O'Laughlin's home. Nearly every station preempted daytime entertainment programming for blanket coverage, much of which boiled down to aerial views of Opa-locka Airport and O'Laughlin's home.