Willing Accomplices
How the Media Failed Cuba
For years those of us who were born in Cuba or grew up in a Cuban family; have wondered about the media and why they report things on Cuba so differently from the way we hear them at home and from relatives on the island. The American media has for the better part of a century leaned left. This left leaning bent was always interpreted as adhering to more liberal ideologies with respect to government programs and issues of social justice. This was a left leaning bent, we all tolerated and could accept.
The left leaning reporting and manipulation that is going on today however, has long ago crossed over into a completely different territory. While in the past they parroted whatever the talking points were as issued by the Castro regime, now they are running a “hide and deflect” campaign against liberty.
For example, over the first three days of the demonstrations in Cuba I looked at multiple news outlets and how they reported and worded their stories (TV & Websites). There has been a focus on the Covid 19 pandemic, the lack of resources and a significant mention of the so called “US Embargo”. What they failed to say is that the demonstrators were screaming “Down with the dictatorship” and “Libertad”. They were not screaming, “we want vaccines”; they were screaming we want LIBERTY. Many in the public did not get that report in the Media, but why?
Since the early days of “The Cuban Revolution” the American left and the American left leaning media treated Cuba as petri dish for all their hopes an aspiration. Cuba was the example (the testing ground) of all that could be accomplished if we could just try that socialism thing (without the green fatigues and uniforms). The petri dish festered for 62 years, and the observers kept telling us that Cuba had achieved great strides in Medicine and Education. It was all a lie, a very BIG LIE.
For us Cubans the lie started with your esteemed colleague Herbert Matthews of the New York Times in the 1950’s, who did an expose story on the “Robin Hood” who would come down from the mountains and make everything alright in Cuba. Well, he did come down from the mountains and it turned out he was a psychopath, a very shrewd and manipulative psychopath. Then throughout the six decades of this dictatorship the left leaning media dutifully reported stories on Cuba, always in the best light possible for the dictatorship.
So here we are after six decades, and the petri dish is no more. The experiment failed and the lab is a mess, a real BIG MESS. The problem remains however, how do we clean it up We sure will not get any help from the media, they are still working on the premise the experiment has a possibility of working. They are so convinced they are even willing to promote trying it in the US. Two tasks remain for all Cubans.
If you are a Cuban on the island – Keep fighting.
If you are a Cuban on the outside – Keep speaking out.
We have few friends, and it takes times like this to sort those details out.
“Estamos Solos con Dios” (I like those odds!)
How the Media Failed Cuba
For years those of us who were born in Cuba or grew up in a Cuban family; have wondered about the media and why they report things on Cuba so differently from the way we hear them at home and from relatives on the island. The American media has for the better part of a century leaned left. This left leaning bent was always interpreted as adhering to more liberal ideologies with respect to government programs and issues of social justice. This was a left leaning bent, we all tolerated and could accept.
The left leaning reporting and manipulation that is going on today however, has long ago crossed over into a completely different territory. While in the past they parroted whatever the talking points were as issued by the Castro regime, now they are running a “hide and deflect” campaign against liberty.
For example, over the first three days of the demonstrations in Cuba I looked at multiple news outlets and how they reported and worded their stories (TV & Websites). There has been a focus on the Covid 19 pandemic, the lack of resources and a significant mention of the so called “US Embargo”. What they failed to say is that the demonstrators were screaming “Down with the dictatorship” and “Libertad”. They were not screaming, “we want vaccines”; they were screaming we want LIBERTY. Many in the public did not get that report in the Media, but why?
Since the early days of “The Cuban Revolution” the American left and the American left leaning media treated Cuba as petri dish for all their hopes an aspiration. Cuba was the example (the testing ground) of all that could be accomplished if we could just try that socialism thing (without the green fatigues and uniforms). The petri dish festered for 62 years, and the observers kept telling us that Cuba had achieved great strides in Medicine and Education. It was all a lie, a very BIG LIE.
For us Cubans the lie started with your esteemed colleague Herbert Matthews of the New York Times in the 1950’s, who did an expose story on the “Robin Hood” who would come down from the mountains and make everything alright in Cuba. Well, he did come down from the mountains and it turned out he was a psychopath, a very shrewd and manipulative psychopath. Then throughout the six decades of this dictatorship the left leaning media dutifully reported stories on Cuba, always in the best light possible for the dictatorship.
So here we are after six decades, and the petri dish is no more. The experiment failed and the lab is a mess, a real BIG MESS. The problem remains however, how do we clean it up We sure will not get any help from the media, they are still working on the premise the experiment has a possibility of working. They are so convinced they are even willing to promote trying it in the US. Two tasks remain for all Cubans.
If you are a Cuban on the island – Keep fighting.
If you are a Cuban on the outside – Keep speaking out.
We have few friends, and it takes times like this to sort those details out.
“Estamos Solos con Dios” (I like those odds!)