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WORD COUNT
703
MAY 28, 2008
PRESS FREEDOM IN CUBA
NOT BAD – by Peter Phillips
“You cannot kill
truth by murdering journalists,” said Tubal Páez, president of the
Journalist Union of Cuba. One hundred and fifty Cuban and South American
journalists, ambassadors, politicians, and foreign guests gathered at
the Jose Marti International Journalist Institute to honor the 50th
anniversary of the death of Carlos Bastidas Arguello — the last
journalist killed in Cuba. Carlos Bastidas was only 23 years of age when
he was assassinated by Fulgencia Batista’s secret police after having
visited Fidel Castro’s forces in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Edmundo
Bastidas, Carlos’ brother, told about how a river of change flowed from
the Maestra (teacher) mountains, symbolized by his brother’s efforts to
help secure a new future for Cuba.
The annual
celebration in Havana was held in honor of
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations in 1993 to
honor journalists who have lost their lives reporting the news, and to
defend media freedom worldwide.
During
my five days in Havana, I met with dozens of journalists, communication
studies faculty and students, union representatives and politicians. The
underlying theme of the visit was to determine the state of media
freedom in Cuba and to build a better understanding between activists
there and in the United States.
I toured the two main
radio stations in Havana, Radio Rebelde and Radio Havana. Both have
Internet access to multiple global news sources including CNN, Reuters,
Associated Press and BBC with several newscasters pulling stories for
public broadcast. Over 90 municipalities in Cuba have their own locally
run radio stations, and journalists report local news from every
province.
During the course of
several hours in each station, I was interviewed on the air about media
consolidation and censorship in the United States and was able to ask
journalists about censorship in Cuba as well. Of the dozens I
interviewed all said that they have complete freedom to write or
broadcast any stories they choose. This was a far cry from the Stalinist
media system so often depicted by U.S. interests.
Nonetheless, it did
become clear that Cuban journalists share a common sense of a continuing
counter-revolutionary threat by U.S.-financed Cuban-Americans living in
Miami. This is not an entirely unwarranted feeling in that many hundreds
of terrorist actions against Cuba have occurred with backing over the
past fifty years. In addition to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, these
attacks include the blowing up of a Cuban airlines plane in 1976
resulting in the deaths of 73 people, the starting in 1981 of an
epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158 people and several hotel
bombings in the 1990s one of which resulted in the death of an Italian
tourist.
In the context of
this external threat, Cuban journalists quietly acknowledge that some
self-censorship undoubtedly occurs regarding news stories that could be
used by the “enemy.” Nonetheless, they strongly value freedom of the
press and there was no evidence of overt restriction or government
control.
Cuban journalists
complain that the U.S. corporate media is biased and refuses to cover
the positive aspects of the country. These might include the fact that
Cuba is the number one organic nation in the world, has an impressive
health care system with a lower infant mortality rate than the United
States, trains doctors from all over the world, and has enjoyed a 40
percent increase in GDP over the past three years.
Ricardo Alarcon,
President of the National Assembly, discussed bias in the United States,
“how often do you see Gore Vidal interviewed on the U.S. media?” he
asked. Vidal has recently said that the United States is in its ‘worst
phase in history.’ “Perhaps Cuba uses corporate news to excess,” he
said, “Cuban journalists need to link more to independent news sources
in the U.S...” Alarcon went on to say that Cuba allows CNN, AP and “The
Chicago Tribune” to maintain offices in Cuba, but that the United States
refuses to allow Cuban journalists to work in the United States.
As the Cuban
socialist system improves, the United States does everything it can to
artificially force Cold War conditions by funding terrorist attacks,
maintaining an economic boycott, launching a new anti-terrorism
Caribbean naval fleet, and increasingly limiting U.S. citizen travel to
Cuba. It is time to reverse this Cold War isolationist position, honor
the Cuban people’s choice of a socialist system and build a positive
working relationship between journalists in support of media democracy
in both our countries.
--
Peter
Phillips is a professor of sociology and Sonoma State University and
director of Project Censored a media research organization. He traveled
to Cuba as an invited guest of the
Journalist Union of
Cuba May 10 to 15, 2008. A photo of Peter Phillips is
available
CLICK HERE
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