News in Cuba

Last Thursday I was watching CNN at one of the hotels where we take dance class and suddenly saw Havana in the news. It appears that the Ladies in White, a group of women who are vociferous critics of the government, marched down the streets of Habana Vieja clamoring for the release of 75 Cuban journalists who were arrested in 2003. The march was peaceful and it seemed like there wasn’t too much police interference, maybe because it was held in such a touristy area, but we would have never found out about it had it not been reported by an international news agency (CNN and other international news channels are viewable in hotels and resorts but not anywhere else).

Most of the habaneros that we talked to were unaware of the march and frankly didn’t seem too interested in it anyway. What was considered by CNN to be important enough to make it into the top world headlines was barely noticed here in Cuba. It’s a sad statement of fact that free journalism doesn’t exist here. Anything that does make into the major dailies – Granma, Juventud Rebelde and a number of other workers’ newspapers – are so full of political spin that it is almost impossible to tell what is fact and what the government wants you to think is fact.

The Haitian earthquake is a good example. For the first month after the earthquake, Granma published a front-page article everyday concerning two different topics relating to the earthquake: US actions in Haiti, and Cuba’s contribution of doctors of nurses to recovery efforts. Cuba’s media, which denounces most American actions as imperialist and neo-colonizing, actively sought to portray US actions as an aggressive military occupation of the country (the images it printed of a US Army Blackhawk helicopter landing on Haiti’s presidential palace didn’t help); on the other hand, it painted a rosy picture of Cuba’s sending of doctors to Haiti as the perfect counterpoint to US aggression.

Of course, Cuba’s medical diplomacy is laudable and praise-worthy. Cuba still maintains more than a thousand doctors in Haiti who have proven invaluable to relief efforts there. But to portray the sending of US Marines to the country as a military occupation, especially after Haiti asked for US assistance, is clearly political. Had the US not sent its military, Cuban doctors would not have had an airport to land at. US Marines provided security and order to a country that badly needed both. Nor did the Cuban media mention the American public’s reaction to the tragedy, including hundreds of millions of dollars raised in donations and humanitarian missions by both NGOs and the US government. The articles published by the Cuban media reflect the political goals of the Cuban government.

Of course the US media is by no means perfect. As our professors here were quick to point out, many of the US’s major news outlets are run by corporations that have their own economic and political interests in mind. Fox News among others has demonstrated a clear political spin, and all of them have practiced self-censorship. But it is just impossible to compare the journalism in the US to that of Cuba. We get really excited when someone's relative brings us a copy of the New York Times because it makes Granma look like a high school newspaper.

The Cuban government’s restrictions on the free press aren’t all encompassing – the fact that I can publish this blog is proof of that. Indeed, many Cubans have been able to publish their own opinions on their own blogs and websites, most notably Yoanni Sanchez, who publishes Generation Y, a blog critical of the government. The Cuban Revolution has many faults and the lack of freedom of speech is one of them. Hopefully politicians here will realize that a free press can promote a healthy and constructive dialogue in the future.