Note: The essay below was first published on Cubaninsider on October 12, 2018, but on one day in February-2021 it received thousands of hits, especially from Europeans, after an important source suggested it "actually contains true facts and facets related to the modern decline of the Western media." It compares Cuban journalism with American journalism.
**********
Cuba Claims It Has Superior Journalism!!
{"Covering real news, not spewing propaganda"}
{Updated: Tuesday, October 16th, 2018}
{"Covering real news, not spewing propaganda"}
{Updated: Tuesday, October 16th, 2018}
In America's Trump era a new term -- "FAKE NEWS!!" -- has evolved to define a once-treasured news media in the United States. Apart from the massive presidential bully pulpit, the mere accuracy of the depiction should concern all Americans. I happen to believe that the origin of FAKE NEWS pre-dated the Trump era and was foreshadowed in 2011 when the Supreme Court permitted unlimited donations to politicians by billionaires. This grossly exacerbated an already dire anti-democracy trend whereby rich lobbyists -- untold thousands of them -- in Washington had emerged as more significant than the politicians they purchased as easily as buying a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant. Now the primary news media in the U. S. are owned by multi-billionaire corporations or multi-billionaire individuals. That includes all the main television news networks -- NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, etc. -- and all the major U. S. newspapers. The iconic Washington Post, for example in a coast-to-coast trend, is now owned by the richest man in the history of the world, Cuban-American Jeff Bezos. In between the right-coast and the left-coast of America, the top newspaper in Nevada, typically, has been purchased by an extremely controversial multi-billionaire, apparently because the former owners criticized him. In other words, Americans don't have to be pro-Trump to at least understand that FAKE NEWS now defines America's news media, which no less an American than Thomas Jefferson insisted was more important to the U. S. democracy than the U. S. government itself. And thus, what has evolved since 2011 and been exacerbated during the Trump era is a U. S. news media that has become more of a vast propaganda machine than a news-gathering source.
For sure, Thomas Jefferson wrote some powerful words into his Declaration of Independence epic, but he also was the writer of the above quotation. He put that much stock in a viable news media to gather the news and dispense it to the American people, the guardians of his Democracy. For about 230 years, it worked...but not now.
And for sure, as indicated by the quote above, Thomas Jefferson would, in all likelihood, be appalled at the depths to which the U. S. media has sunk although in his time the term FAKE NEWS had not yet been invented...and neither had radio, television, and the Internet, which are all massive tools when in the hands of propagandists.
Another of America's greatest Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin, also...as indicated by the quote above...worried about the U. S. democracy becoming "dissolved" and replaced by "tyranny" IF there was not "a proper examination into the action of the magistrates." Well, as FAKE NEWS has evolved into vast media propaganda machines, there is today no "no proper examination into the action of the magistrates," which means a government run by insane amounts of money in which billionaires can easily purchase politicians, eliminating the voting process as the essential tool of the Democracy envisioned and created by Jefferson, Franklin, etc.
The once revered Wall Street Journal is now a part of the Fox News empire. One of the most powerful anti-Cuban columnists at the WSJ is Mary Anastasia O'Grady. She has been one of the WSJ's key Editorial Board members since 2005. Her main mission seems to be to goad the Trump administration into overthrowing the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. Judge for yourself. On Aug. 6-2018 a 3 minute, 21 second video surfaced on YouTube with this title/promotion: "Venezuela Is A Threat to the U. S.: Mary Anastasia O'Grady." For a long time O'Grady has maintained that Venezuela is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cuba and that every bad thing that has ever happened in Venezuela was strictly orchestrated by Cuba. This week -- on October 14th, 2018 -- the O'Grady article in the WSJ is entitled: "Cuba Holds the Key to Venezuela." Again she claims Cuba accounts for every bad thing that has ever happened in Venezuela, apparently again this week using massive WSJ space to goad Trump into doing away with the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. If you Google-search O'Grady's name, you'll see that her short Wikipedia bio has this EXACT sentence: "O'Grady has received many critics for the presumably inaccurate facts in articles written for the Wall Street Journal like an assumption that Fidel Castro developed a virus to share with Islamic fundamentalists." And, yes, to this day Mary Anastasia O'Grady remains the once-respected Wall Street Journal's primary war-mongering and most viral anti-Cuban extremist. Talking about fake news, including very dangerous FAKE NEWS!! But judge for yourself by checking her aforementioned references.
The once revered Wall Street Journal is now a part of the Fox News empire. One of the most powerful anti-Cuban columnists at the WSJ is Mary Anastasia O'Grady. She has been one of the WSJ's key Editorial Board members since 2005. Her main mission seems to be to goad the Trump administration into overthrowing the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. Judge for yourself. On Aug. 6-2018 a 3 minute, 21 second video surfaced on YouTube with this title/promotion: "Venezuela Is A Threat to the U. S.: Mary Anastasia O'Grady." For a long time O'Grady has maintained that Venezuela is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cuba and that every bad thing that has ever happened in Venezuela was strictly orchestrated by Cuba. This week -- on October 14th, 2018 -- the O'Grady article in the WSJ is entitled: "Cuba Holds the Key to Venezuela." Again she claims Cuba accounts for every bad thing that has ever happened in Venezuela, apparently again this week using massive WSJ space to goad Trump into doing away with the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. If you Google-search O'Grady's name, you'll see that her short Wikipedia bio has this EXACT sentence: "O'Grady has received many critics for the presumably inaccurate facts in articles written for the Wall Street Journal like an assumption that Fidel Castro developed a virus to share with Islamic fundamentalists." And, yes, to this day Mary Anastasia O'Grady remains the once-respected Wall Street Journal's primary war-mongering and most viral anti-Cuban extremist. Talking about fake news, including very dangerous FAKE NEWS!! But judge for yourself by checking her aforementioned references.
The animated video above, I think, encapsulates what the U. S. media has dissolved into. Humberto Fontana was born in Havana in 1954 and his family ended up in New Orleans shortly after the Cuban Revolution. As a Counter Revolutionary adult, Fontana, like so many others, insists on controlling the Cuban narrative in the United States...and, for the most part, they have done that. Thus, as above, Americans are incessantly told that the brutal and thieving Batista-Mafia rule in Cuba prior to the Revolution treated everyday Cubans like Mother Teresa would have treated them. Therefore, you American taxpayers should keep those tax-dollars flowing to Miami so we can recapture the island...and, of course, we need you to accept any and all methods we use to accomplish that end. With no mainstream U. S. media brave enough to counter such propaganda, Fontana and many others like him are unhindered in dispensing such diatribes. In fact, billionaires like the Mercer family powerfully back such right-wing but very effective digital rags as Breitbart and Townhall, with the latter often giving free-and-uncontested reign to Fontana to spiel out whatever anti-Cuba/pro-Counter Revolutionary rhetoric he chooses.
But in America's mostly glorious history since 1776, there is probably nothing that has shamed the U. S. and Democracy more than its Cuban Policy...you know, the Cuban policy that is probably the only topic that could possibly attain unanimous international condemnation -- 191-to-0 in the UN and a uananimity approved by President Obama. For example, once the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was overthrow in 1959, it quickly reconstituted itself on U. S. soil, backed by many of the very same right-wing thugs who had sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952 so rich Americans could partake in the rape and robbery of the island. Then the Bush dynasty back in the early 1980s anointed Jorge Mas Canosa, the anti-Castro zealot trained at Fort Benning as a 1961 Bay of Pigs Attack-Soldier, as the U. S. Cuban superstar in charge of the Counter Revolutionaries. Shortly thereafter, Canosa became the first of many Cuban-American billionaires capable of buying off any-and-all Republican presidents and however many members of Congress he needed. Among the things that evolved from this were Congressional bills eagerly signed by all Republican presidents and even by intimidated Democratic presidents such as the scared Bill Clinton who signed Canosa's lucrative 1996 Helms-Burton Act that to this day greatly enriches a handful of Cuban-Americans while also shamefully punishing totally innocent Cubans on the island. One of Canosa's quick successes was Radio Television-Marti, which...to this day...stashes U. S. tax-dollars in a massive pipeline from Washington to Miami. Of course, that's its purpose although the stated purpose is to inform Cubans on the island how mean their revolutionary leader Fidel Castro is...or was {he died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016}. Since the 1980s brave U. S. journalists such as ABC-TV's Jeffrey Kofman decades ago and Tracey Eaton IN MID-OCTOBER OF 2018 have informed America precisely what Radio Television-Marti is...and it is nothing more and nothing less than a lushly funded scheme whereby Republican presidents and right-wingers in Congress are allowed to enrich and empower, decade after decade, mutually beneficial Cuban-American Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. Radio Television-Marti since the 1980s has used vast sums of tax dollars to pay huge salaries to prop-up an extreme right-wing anti-Cuban propaganda machine...and the executives, as reported by the highly respected Tracey Eaton in mid-October of 2018, still have enough money to make millionaires out of selected Cuban-Americans. All the while, it is well known that Cuba easily blocks the poorly crafted propaganda programs and, in any case, only the choir in Miami takes it seriously except for the serious dollars that fund it, a fact that decent politicians and decent journalists have pointed out for decades.
A quarter of a century ago the great investigative reporter at ABC-TV News, Jeffrey Kofman, cogently informed American democracy-lovers and tax-payers how they were being ripped off by Radio-TV Marti in Miami. They, of course, are still being ripped off by the same thing today, so it might be appropriate for Americans to Google-search that news report today. Here's what Jeffrey Kofman definitively reported: "It's the newscast to nowhere...courtesy of U. S. taxpayers. The Marti broadcasts are zealously protected by Miami's Cuban-American congressional representatives who reward their hard-line supporters with jobs. But the 'news' goes on, the Newscast to Nowhere. And no one sees it. The intended audience is the people of Cuba." Jeffrey Kofman went on to explain that the Marti broadcasts are easily blocked by Cuba and, even if they got through, the Cuban people would believe what they experience on the island, not what Counter Revolutionary zealots in Miami tell them. And Kofman makes plain that the purpose of Marti is for "Miami's Cuban-American congressional representatives to reward their hard-line supporters with jobs." Now, please...if you are an American democracy-lover or tax-payer, you should take time to study Jeffrey Kofman's definitive report on Radio-TV Marti AND THEN EQUATE IT TO WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE PHOTO BELOW.
On the left is Tomas Regalado and on the right is U. S. Senator Marco Rubio. The Cuban-born Regalado, a former Mayor of Miami, has long been one of the most powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. One of his pupils was/is Rubio, who has newly been anointed by President Trump as Miami's and the U. S. government's new Cuban dictator. Of course, before overthrowing Revolutionary Cuba, Rubio's main task in 2018, just as Jeffrey Kofman pointed out so cogently a quarter of a century ago, is to reward his "hard-line supporters with jobs." So, in case you missed it, Rubio, in his new capacity as America's Cuban dictator, recently gave his mentor Regalado the plush job as the leader of Radio-TV Marti. Americans, of course, are programmed not to believe what jeffrey Kofman pointed out a quarter century ago, and that is that...Radio-TV Marti today is what it was 25 years ago -- "The newscast to nowhere...courtesy of U. S. taxpayers." It says a lot, of course, about those taxpayers BUT MOSTLY IT SAYS A LOT ABOUT AMERICA'S DEMOCRACY.
This month of October-2018 Tracey Eaton, one of America's greatest Cuban experts and one of its best journalists, has posted an article on his blogs -- Along the Malecon and Cuba Money Project -- in which he reveals how Radio-TV Marti, so flushed with tax dollars, has doled out a million dollars to a favorite poet and over $800,000 to at least four other selected "contributors" but he also points out that most such money still goes to secretly chosen clients that tax-payers are not supposed to know about or care about or even have a hint about what those recipients did to earn such riches, IF ANYTHING!! So the beat goes on...AND ON. Tracy Eaton's expert knowledge of Cuban affairs is still being utilized by the New York Times, USA Today, NBC News, and many other high-powered sources. But Tracey is also now a Professor of Journalism/Photography at Flagler College in Florida. And Tracey, a friend of mine, is also a hands-on Professor in doling out assignments to his students. I think maybe, for journalism's sake and democracy's sake, he should assign some of his best students to research the effect the Counter Revolutionary Cubans on U. S. soil have had on both U. S. Journalist and the U. S. democracy since 1959.
When the Bush dynasty decades ago was allowed to anoint Counter Revolutionary extremist Jorge Mas Canosa as essentially the Cuban dictator on U. S. soil, the American democracy changed forever. And, of course, the U. S. democracy has never been able to hold either the Bush dynasty or the Counter Revolutionary extremists accountable.
Thus, to this day the U. S. is struck with massive bills, as shown above, that massively enrich and empower selected Counter Revolutionaries while harming everyone else, including the U. S. democracy.
And, as noted, even Democratic President Bill Clinton was not nearly as powerful as Jorge Mas Canosa when it came to mandating America's Cuban policy...uh, you know, the policy that President Obama and the entire world condemned 191-to-0 in 2016, Obama's last year in the White House and the last year the U. S. has had a decent President overseeing America's UN vote land its Cuban policies.
In 1996 it was well-known that Democratic President Bill Clinton was about to use his Executive Powers to normalize relations with Cuba. But shortly after that fact became know, Clinton ended up signing into law the infamous Helms-Burton Act, which to this day remains the albatross around America's neck that enriches and empowers selected Cuban-Americans while harming everyone else, especially innocent Cubans on the island and innocent Cuban-Americans who object to such brutality. {The top Cuban-Americans newsman in Miami, Emilio Milian, was car-bombed after he complained about such things as the airplane-bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 that killed all 73 on board, including two dozen teenage Cuban athletes}. Study the photo above. Does President Clinton look scared seconds after he signed Helms-Burton into law? Clinton is staring up at Bob Menendez, the long-time Cuban-American U. S. Senator that the Federal government tried for years to prosecute on fraud and bribery charges, only to see Menendez survive the expensive Federal trial in 2017 because of a hung-jury. And looking down over Clinton's right shoulder is Lincoln Diaz-Balart, one of two Counter Revolutionaries elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami who were the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship who became one of richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Miami's history. Yes, by all means, study the photo above. If you don't think President Clinton was scared, that's fine too.
While the omnipotent Helms-Burton Act still greatly enriches and empowers selected Counter Revolutionaries, it hasn't exactly helped either the great U. S. democracy OR great Cuban-American journalists...like Emilio Milian, for example, who got car-bombed in Miami for being decent.
Since the victorious Cuban Revolution in 1959 chased the leaders of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship to their new capital of Little Havana in nearby Miami, the Batistiano/Mafiosi-fueled U. S. Cuban policy, designed to regain control of Cuba, has created probably the only issue in the entire and very diverse world that could get condemned unanimously -- 191-to-0 -- in the United Nations -- a unanimity, by the way, that was approved by America's decent President, Barack Obama. An offshoot of the U. S. democracy permitting, decade after decade, a mere handful of vicious, revengeful, and greedy Cuban-Americans, and their easily acquired sycophants, to dictate America's Cuban policy has left an ongoing cancerous blight on both America and Democracy. The Explore Cuba graphic above is a reminder of that insult to Democracy. As dictated by the powerful Batistiano-Mafiosi Castro Cottage Industry, U. S. Cuban policy since 1959 has dictated that Americans are the only people in the world without the easy freedom to visit Cuba lest they judge it for themselves. The idea, of course, is to allow the most vicious Counter Revolutionaries to tell pusillanimous Americans what Revolutionary Cuba is like so those propagandized and intimidated Americans will keep shelling out tons of tax dollars, as well as their ignorance and cowardice, to leave America's Cuban policy in the hands of Counter Revolutionaries who are now into their 7th decade of trying to regain control of the lush island whose capital of Havana is only about a hundred miles from Little Havana in Miami, Florida.
As I will point out shortly, three of America's most famed and respected veteran broadcast journalists -- Ted Koppel, Larry King, and Jeff Greenfield -- have in the past few days made headlines by lamenting the drastic descent and decline of broadcast journalism in the United States, which they feel has evolved into billionaire-backed propaganda machines as opposed to networks that actually cover the news. That is interesting considering that Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, agrees with Koppel, King, and Greenfeld. Diaz-Canel recently, after returning to Cuba following a successful week at the UN and other New York City venues, said, "In the United States, people are unhappy with their broadcast media. They think the U. S. media hires propagandists, not journalists, when they hire anchors and reporters. Well, Cuba has produced a group of talented, well educated broadcast journalists and I will endeavor to make full use of them." Diaz-Canel ordered his Ministers to appear regularly on Cuban television to "tell the people what you are doing, if anything, to address their problems." Born on April 20th, 1960, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Diaz-Canel loves to traverse the island and mingle with the people.
The photo above, taken this week, shows Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visiting Cuban workers in the small hamlet of Batabano. They had sent word to their President that people selling them necessary construction material were involved in "corruption" that was hurting them. Diaz-Canel went to Batabano this week to discuss the problem directly with the citizens. He is the first non-Castro Cuban leader since 1959. A former Education Minister who grew up far outside Havana, Diaz-Canel is well-liked by everyday Cubans because they consider him to be a people-person. And when he can't visit with all of them, he plans to utilize the island's excellent broadcast journalists to continually communicate with them. Diaz-Canel said, "We have a really strong core of excellent, well-educated broadcast journalists, the best in the region. I want my Ministers to appear on their news programs to let the people know how we are handling their concerns, so the people themselves can judge how we are doing."
This photo, illustrating President Diaz-Canel's instructions, was taken today -- October 15th, 2018. It shows Cuba's Minister of Commerce, Rodrigo Malmierca, being interviewed by talented young broadcast journalist Rosy Amaro Perez.
The Cuban journalist who reported on President Diaz-Canel's trip to Batabano is Rosy Amaro Perez. She is one of a whole host of talented, well-educated female broadcast journalists that President Diaz-Canel endeavors to "make full use of" to help his government communicate with the people.
The photo above shows Rosy Amaro Perez anchoring a news program on Noticiero Cultural, a new television channel that broadcast back to Cuba in minutely covering President Diaz-Canel's recent week in New York City. Rosy's primary anchoring is on the Cubavision International channel, which indeed does have an international reach to far-away countries like Australia thanks to the magic of satellites.
By the way, Rosy Amaro Perez is the doting mother of a precious little girl, Mariana, who turned 5-years-old this week -- on October 10th, 2018. I communicate often with Rosy hoping to make sure that the latest Republican assaults on innocent Cubans, now being engineered by Little Havana "choirboy" Marco Rubio with President Trump's permission, leaves Rosy and Mariana unscathed.
The recent photo above, taken by notable photograher Roberto Garaycoa Martinez, shows Cristina Escobar, a top celebrity in Cuba as the island's most famed young broadcast journalist.
There are many people who consider Cristina Escobar the best broadcast journalist in the Western Hemisphere. Superbly talented as an anchor, reporter, and interviewer, Cristina hosts important news programs on the island in Spanish and she also hosts a regional broadcast in English. Her admirers include NBC's long-time top Foreign Correspondent Andrea Mitchell and former U. S. President Barack Obama.
In fact, during the decent and Cuba-friendly Obama presidency, Cristina Escobar, as shown above, became the first Cuban journalist in history to ask questions at a White House news conference in Washington. The brilliant Cristina took full advantage of that invitation; she asked four pertinent questions in calm English and then added two pertinent follow-up questions, totally dominating the news conference.
Back in Cuba as a highly skilled broadcast journalist, Cristina Escobar is also considered an expert on U.S.-Cuban relations.
With expert knowledge of historic and topical U.S.-Cuban relations, Cristina Escobar is often a guest on regional and international broadcasts.
When I was in Cuba in 2004 to research my biography of the island's incomparable revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez, the very first American I met was Tracey Eaton who was then in charge of the Dallas Morning News bureau in Havana.
In addition to the Dallas Morning News, you can see above that Tracey Eaton's Cuban expertise has also been used by media outlets such as USA Today and many others. In March-2016, for example, he guided NBC's top anchor Lester Holt's coverage of President Obama's historic trip to Cuba, and in August-2015 Tracey Eaton aided NBC's coverage of the opening of the U. S. Embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. While the mainstream U. S. media is generally too afraid or too politically correct to report fairly on Cuban issues, superb U. S. journalists like Tracey Eaton are the exception to the rule.
Today Tracey Eaton is a distinguished Professor {journalism and photography} at Flagler College in Florida. But his Cuban expertise still is utilized from time-to-time by the New York Times, USA Today, the Pulitzer Center, etc.
For the Pulitzer Center, Tracey Eaton flies to Cuba to do informative interviews with a cross-section of Cubans. After he had interviewed a couple of dissidents, I suggested to Tracey that his next Cuban interview should be with Cristina Escobar. As shown above, Tracey did that and he gave me credit in the accompanying article. Today YouTube features two versions of Tracey's interview with Cristina Escobar. She has spoken at Universities from Alabama to California and she has visited Miami restaurants and airports on her way back to Cuba, knowing that Counter Revolutionaries in Little Havana have richly enticed her to defect. That won't happen. In the Tracey Eaton interview above and on her memorable journalistic trip to Washington, Cristina's two most pertinent quotations, I believe, are: {1} "Cuba's fate should be decided by Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington," and {2} "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba."
Not only are the two Cristina Escobar quotations depicted above quite profound, they are also quite correct. Fair-minded Americans, like Barack Obama, agree with her...and that's why, during Obama's last year as U. S. President the nations of the world, in the United Nations, voted 191-to-0 to unanimously condemn the U. S. embargo of Cuba, first imposed in 1962 and now easily the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much weaker nation. As a U.S.-Cuban expert, Cristina Escobar knows that and reports on it.
Adding extreme credence to Cristina Escobar's two most pertinent quotations is the famed Carlos Latuff image above, which highlighted de-classified U. S. documents that revealed the purpose of the unholy and undemocratic embargo against Cuba was this: To starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of everyday Cubans on the island for the purpose of inducing them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Despite six brutal decades of implementation, the embargo has failed miserable...except, of course, for humiliating the U. S. and democracy in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of decent Americans like Obama and decent Cubans like Escobar. And, as epitomized by Cristina Escobar, there have always been, and remain today, enough Cubans on the island who will fight to the death to prevent a return of foreign domination, especially as represented by Spain for centuries and by the United States support of the brutal Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1952 to 1959. Cristina Escobar, both in Cuba and on U. S. soil, has both the insight and the courage to speak truthfully about such things as the embargo but, in stark contrast to her, the broadcast journalists in the United States, even those who are not Counter Revolutionary extremists, do not have such courage or integrity when it comes to reporting on Cuban issues.
So permit me to repeat those two majestically correct quotations by Cristina Escobar, Cuba's superbly talented broadcast journalist: {1} "Cuba's fate should be decided by Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington;" and {2} "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." Those two quotations, I believe, are more-and-more gaining resonance and relevance with Americans who are subjected to the broadcast media in the United States that, indeed, more resembles propaganda machines than news gathering operations.
For two decades the great interviewer Larry King was the highest profile journalist at CNN. Now, like millions of Americans and people around the world who depended on CNN as a top news source, Larry King sees what everyone else sees when he tunes in his old network. Recently Mr. King made headlines when he stated that "There is no news anymore," meaning that CNN and the other five major "news" broadcast networks in the USA are now propaganda outlets, not news gatherers. Mr King maintained that CNN no longer seeks to hire journalists, only propaganda pundits used on endless on-set "panels." Mr. King lamented seeing as many as "8" propaganda pundits on CNN sets at a given time and he, like millions of others, believes CNN and the other five propaganda machines should replace the propaganda-spewers with "8" legitimate BROADCAST JOURNALISTS.
Now 75-years-old, Jeff Greenfield remains one of America's most respected broadcast journalists. He recently made headlines echoing Larry King's acute critique of what today's broadcast networks in the USA have descended to, which is spewers of propaganda as opposed to gathering and dispensing news that Americans need.
The long-time Superstar anchor at ABC-TV News and still America's most respected broadcast journalist since the late Walter Cronkite, Ted Koppel is an American disgusted with the depths to which broadcast networks in the United States have descended, and Mr. Koppel should be applauded for speaking out.
Recently the great Ted Koppel was interviewed on CNN by CNN anchor Brian Stelter. As indicated above, Stelter was flummoxed and taken aback when Koppel told him that CNN is obsessed with anti-Trump propaganda as opposed to covering and presenting the news. The Koppel observation is not only correct but it is apparent to any unbiased viewer that CNN has become an insult to broadcast journalism...but so have NBC, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS as well as the pro-Trump Fox network. Propaganda masquerading as news coverage is something American viewers, including Ted Koppel, have grown very tired of.
The photo above, I believe, illustrates the sharp decline of broadcast journalism in the United States. It shows Ted Turner hosting Ted Koppel on Turner's Montana ranch. Turner was the great visionary who founded CNN a quarter century ago. Turner envisioned and created a 24-hour cable broadcast network that hired the best anchors, the best producers, and the best reporters to go out and cover the news and then present it to their appreciative audiences. But Turner later sold his CNN empire to a multi-billionaire corporation that didn't share his respect for journalism...and that unfortunate transition has been replicated since then in both the broadcast and print industry with mammoth corporations like Disney, Comcast, and others purchasing the major broadcast properties and even individual billionaires doing the same...such as the Cuban-American Jeff Bezos, the richest person in world history, buying the iconic Washington Post, which now appears to also be primarily an anti-Trump propaganda machine. And so, in that Montana field depicted above, I wonder what the great broadcast visionary Ted Turner and the former great broadcast anchor Ted Koppel were saying about the status of America's broadcast news industry today. I believe, for example, they may have been in agreement with statements made by Cuba's great young broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar.
So, let's revisit two of Cristina Escobar's most pertinent statements: {1} "Cuba's fate should be up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington;" and {2} "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba."
A truthful but frustrated Cristina Escobar.
Does Cuba have better and more truthful broadcast journalists than the United States? Cristina Escobar believes that, yes, Cuba does...and she's probably right.
And by the way:
The U. S. media no longer seems capable of producing great print or broadcast journalists, except for great Editorial Cartoonists such as Chan Lowe, the genius for the Tribune Content Agency.
The USA Today and many other U. S. publications featured the above Chan Lowe gem. In an era when America's great newspapers -- such as the Washington Post on the East Coast and the Los Angeles Times -- have been bought by opinionated multi-billionaires, the superb Editorial Cartoons, with their economy of words, are now your best bet. That is especially true in an era when the top six U. S. broadcast news sources are comprised of five left-wing propaganda machines and one right-wing propaganda machine. In that milieu, Chan Lowe quickly and expertly defined a major segment of typical news as shown above. It appears a combination of things, such as the FBI's raid on the home of President Trump's lawyer, is inching closer to impeachment for Mr. Trump although the left-wing media is having trouble executing the process after two years of exhaustive efforts. That means the ultra-rich and ultra-powerful forces aligned against him -- CNN-NBC-CBS-ABC-MSNBC-The Washington Post-and-the-New York Times -- are determined to reverse the 2016 election, which I admit would be extremely good for Cuba and others but is a process that should be determined by voters, not coups.
But politically and otherwise, great Editorial Cartoonists like Chan Lowe have risen to the forefront of the U. S. media when it comes to actual news coverage as opposed to sheer, pundit-driven propaganda or, indeed, intentional Fake News.
For example, while the great Chan Lowe is certainly anti-Trump, with gems like the one above he also indicates he's not impressed with what the Republican Party has as presidential candidates after Trump, such as money-hungry Cuban-American Rubio.
