A viral photo of a crying Honduran girl didn't tell the whole story. Does it matter?

The picture of a crying young Hondurangirl in a pink jacket and jeansbecame a powerfulimageto illustratethe controversial U.S. policy of separating children from parentsarrested for crossing illegally from Mexico.

But the picture has sparked its own controversy, as it has since been learned the imagedid not tell that specific story.

"The picture just does not say what we all thought it said. And I think that's a problem," said Dan Kennedy, an associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University.

Getty Images photographer John Moore took the photoof U.S. border officials detaining and searching the girl's mother at the border inMcAllen, Texas, on June 12.

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The image soon went viral, retweeted repeatedly on social media and used by a number ofnews organizations to symbolize the issue ofchildren being separated fromparents caught illegally crossing into the United States.

For its cover, Time magazine took the image of the girllooking upcrying, combined it with an image ofU.S. President Donald Trump, and ran the headline: "Welcome to America."

'Ripped from parents'

The New York Daily News used the whole picture on its coverwith the words: "Callous. Soulless. Craven. Trump.Prez'sedict led to 2,000 children ripped from parents at border in just 6 weeks."

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The picture seemed destined to become iconic, much like the image ofthree-year-old Syrian refugeeAlanKurdi'sbody washed up on the shore, or thepictures ofchildrenfleeingan aerial napalm attack during the Vietnam War.

But as new details emerged,the narrative didn't match what many thought the picture depicted. Thegirl was not one of thechildren who hadbeen "ripped" from her parents. Instead, mother and daughter had been taken away together.

The girl was crying, Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz told CBS News, not as a result of beingseparated from her family but because,according to the mother,she was "tired and thirsty" and it was late.

These new details were immediately seized on by a number of conservative commentators. National Review editor Rich Lowry tweeted that the "iconic image of the separations policy didn't involve a separation all too typical of how a hysterical, advocacy-driven media covers immigration."

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary of George W. Bush, tweeted,"Time's cover crossed the line. They separated themselves from the truth.MSM'sdedication to a narrative is killing their credibility."

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Time, however,stood by its decision to use that image for its cover. EdwardFelsenthal, Time editor in chief, said the image "became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason.

"Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment."

(Time did issue a correctionto its story written earlier this week about the photograph, saying"the girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. border patrol agents.")

'Fake news'

Kennedy saidthe new details about the imageplayinto the hands of supporters of Trump and the president himselfwho can say "the story's been exaggerated. It's fake news or whatever."

"To take a picture that did not depict what we all thought it depicted and use that in your photo illustration with the president looming over her like thatit's just not a good look for Time magazine, and it just ends up being used to castigate all of the mainstream media," said Kennedy.

However, Mike Ananny, assistant professor of communication and journalism at the University of Southern California, said focusingon the changing narrative of the picture plays into the hands of those who want to deny the existence of families being separated.

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"I think the child crying represented something that is very real, and the fact that that particular child's storyshifted or changed a little bit from what it was assumed to be tomeit's just not that important."

Ananny said images are notjust documentation.

"They are symbols at the same time. They can mean a lot of different things at once."

Barbie Zelizer, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said picturescan'tfully representwhat a story is about.

"We kind of talkabout the images as if theyhold all the evidence, and there's no picture that does that."

'Tempest in a teacup'

She said the controversy over the photo of the crying Honduran girl is a "tempest in a teacup,"and that "there is no one picture that ever tells us the whole story."

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"In this particular case, does it really matter in the end result as to whether or not that child was only put down for a second or picked up a moment later or left on the ground and taken away? That doesn't matter because we know that she is representative of other kids to which that did happen," she said.

"The picture reflects the activities that are going on at this time. Even if the actual representation did not represent what people assumed."

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