Cuba and the Media

A Two-sided Conundrum
{Updated May 25th, 2014}

        Most Cubans on the island get their news from their personal everyday observations or, as with this man, from the state-controlled media. "Granma," the state newspaper, is the primary source followed by "The Roundtable," the popular nightly television program hosted by Randy Alonso. Most people off the island get their Cuban news from highly orchestrated anti-Castro sources. Contrary to the perception in the U. S., "Granma" and "The Roundtable" are generally considered by the Cuban people to be accurate depictions of what is happening on the island and elsewhere because the government doesn't appear to believe its well-educated people are either blind or stupid. Also, Cuba permits leading international news organizations to file daily reports from the island -- including the BBC, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS, Al Jazeera, the Associated Press, Agence France Presse, etc. -- although it well knows that much of that coverage will be critical of the government.

     Cuba routinely permits well-known, fair-minded foreign journalists, such as DeWayne Wickham of USA Today or Andrea Mitchell of NBC, to visit the island and file uninhibited reports. However, Cuba does block well known, biased anti-Cuban coverage such as Miami-based Radio-TV Marti that the U. S. government has lavishly funded since the 1980s to appease and enrich anti-Castro zealots. Also, Cuba now permits even the most famed dissident on the island, blogger Yoani Sanchez, to travel abroad well knowing that her now lucrative and ubiquitous anti-Castro zealotry will make international headlines that will be harmful to Cuba. Of course, on her trips to the United States Yoani Sanchez is sure to visit the state-of-the-art Radio-TV Marti studio in Miami, a prime vehicle for costly {to U. S. taxpayers} anti-Castro venom. The above photo shows Yoani Sanchez on her last visit to Radio-TV Marti in Miami.

      And, of course, when she visits America Yoani Sanchez is sure to be wined and dined in the hallowed halls of the U. S. Congress. In the above photo she is flanked by Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez, two visceral anti-Castro members of the U. S. Senate. Yoani Sanchez is not a particularly good journalist but she, for sure, is particularly anti-Castro and, in the U. S., she fully understands that is enough to make a Cuban rich and famous...and to get you wined and dined in the U. S. Congress.

      Back on the island of Cuba this week, Yoani Sanchez and her husband launched their highly publicized and lushly funded digital newspaper. If you are interested, it's available at www.14ymedio.com, at least off the island. Shortly after it was launched, the Cuban government blocked it by directing online users to an anti-Yoani site.

      But by Sunday -- May 25th -- this AFP photo was showing a Cuban woman reading 14YMedio on her computer in Cuba. So the blockage was short-lived.

      As far as Cuba is concerned, Yoani Sanchez as well as her Generation Y blog and her newly launched digital newspaper are all funded by biased U. S. sources that, for two generations now, have tried mightily to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba way back on January 1, 1959. It was announced on launch day that Yoani Sanchez's digital newspaper had funding for at least a year and was hiring nine correspondents. Cuba said the funding was coming from the United States via connections in Spain and Brazil.

On a gentler topic.............

     ........Major League Baseball Thursday featured this photo of America's Hero Cat. Her name is Tara. A video of her attacking a dog that was unmercifully attacking a helpless 4-year-old boy went viral around the world. Here Tara, with help from the boy's parents, is throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game in the ballpark of the Bakersfield Blaze, a farm team of the Houston Astros. Tara is indeed a hero.

       The New York Times Thursday used this photo to illustrate a major article by Nicholas Kristof, a great journalist very interested in human rights, especially when it comes to disadvantaged girls. This is a 16-year-old Vietnamese girl named Phung. Kristof and the "Room to Read" project had raised money to make sure that poor girls like Phung could go to school. Despite taking care of her siblings after the death of her mother, Phung is an "A" student as a high school junior and she is eagerly anticipating college. Kristof, who went to her isolated Vietnamese town to check on her, said Phung cried when she had to spank her younger brother because he was spending too much time with "naughty" street boys. She has just one school uniform but washes it nightly. Like the always concerned Nicholas Kristof, all of us need to care about young girls like Phung who -- whether in Vietnam, Nigeria or elsewhere -- deserve educational and health opportunities that wealthy children receive.

******************************