The Miami Herald disclosed on Sept. 7 that at least 10 south Florida journalists have received payments of $1,550 to nearly $175,000 from the U.S. government since 2001. The journalists were paid to write news stories and commentary against Cuba and the Cuban government.
This disclosure reveals exactly how the U.S. ruling class turned a layer of high-profile journalists into paid agents to
|
Just as the embedded journalists in the Iraq war are a virtual public relations department for the Pentagon, these Florida-based reporters were paid to spread lies and fuel the anti-Cuban flame.
The Miami Herald revealed that these journalists have received regular payments from the U.S. Office of Cuban Broadcasting, which oversees the CIA-operated TV and Radio Marti. The sole function of these well-budgeted imperialist tools is to beam anti-Cuban propaganda to the island to subvert the Cuban revolution.
Three of the reporters on the U.S. government’s payroll worked for El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish language daily affiliated with the Miami Herald.
Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba and wrote an opinion column for El Nuevo Herald, was paid almost $175,000 since 2001 to host shows on Radio and TV Marti.
Olga Connor, a freelance reporter who wrote about Cuban culture for El Nuevo Herald, received about $71,000.
Others worked for Diario Las Américas, a right-wing Spanish language newspaper in Miami, including its opinion page editor Helen Aguirre Ferre and reporter and columnist Ariel Remos.
Jesús Díaz, Jr., president of the Miami Herald Media Co. and publisher of both newspapers, quickly distanced himself from the reporters by firing them for violating the “sacred trust” between journalists and the public. But the notion of this “sacred trust” is a joke. The Miami Herald supports Washington’s bankrolling of the so-called independent journalists in Cuba.
Journalists really government agents
The Cuban government has long maintained that some Miami journalists were on the U.S. government’s payroll, especially among the Spanish language press.
In July 2006, during the Mercosur Summit in Argentina, Manuel Cao, a Univision reporter based in Miami confronted Cuban president Fidel Castro demanding to know why a “dissident” was not allowed to leave Cuba to visit her son in Argentina. Castro responded by asking Cao who paid him to pose the question. It appears we now know the answer. In this year alone, Cao has received $11,400 in unreported payments from TV Marti.
Perhaps the best known of the journalists revealed to be on the U.S. payroll is Carlos Alberto Montaner, a right-wing syndicated columnist whose opinions frequently appear on the pages of the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and dozens of newspapers and TV stations across the United States.
Montaner’s website boasts that his message reaches 6 million people daily. He and the other journalist/government operatives hold enormous influence in molding public perception.
Those of the U.S.-paid journalists who have spoken about the revelations have been unrepentant. Diario Las Américas reporter Ariel Remos said, “I liked being on those panels because we could say what we wanted. For example, we didn’ t have to call Fidel Castro the president of Cuba. I could call him what he is, a dictator.”
Through the corporate press, the 10 reporters have constantly and virulently spewed anti-Cuban propaganda. Their articles and commentaries have been, in essence, the media justification for the existence of several paramilitary groups that have plotted and carried out terrorist attacks against Cuba from U.S. shores.
Media conjured hysteria during Cuban Five’s trial
Five Cuban men, now known as the Cuban Five, were arrested in south Florida on Sept. 12, 1998. Seen as heroes in Cuba and by millions of progressives all over the world, they were in the United States to monitor the activities of terrorist groups operating in the region. After the Five’s arrest, the Miami media increased the volume and intensity of its anti-Cuban coverage.
Even before the Cuban Five were unjustly convicted in a U.S. federal trial court, they were convicted by the Miami media.
|
Before their convictions, wild stories appeared in the mainstream media as a way of demonizing the Cuban Five and the Cuban government.
Wilfredo Cancio Isla, a reporter for El Nuevo Herald and one of the 10 exposed for taking almost $15,000 from the U.S. government, wrote numerous articles that referenced the Cuban Five in a negative and reactionary way.
On June 4, 2001, just before the Five were convicted, Isla wrote an article in El Nuevo Herald entitled “Cuba Used Hallucinogens in Training Its Spies.” The article read more like a sci-fi thriller than a serious piece of reportage.
In it, Isla claimed that an unnamed ex-Cuban official had turned over a nine-page training manual to the FBI. The manual, Isla claimed, documented that Cuban agents were hypnotized and fed LSD in preparation for their assignments as a way of dominating their minds from afar.
The FBI did not comment on the report, but that did not matter because Isla claimed that another three unnamed ex-Cuban officials living in Miami corroborated the report—hardly credible references. According to Isla, the initial unnamed informant felt compelled during the Five’s trial to come forth with his bizarre story.
The recent revelation about the U.S. government-paid reporters in south Florida came less than one month after the Aug. 9 denial of the Cuban Five’s appeal for a new trial outside Miami. In that erroneous decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opined that there was no pervasive anti-Cuban prejudice in Miami.
Now we know that 10 major media figures in the Miami area were on the U.S. government’s payroll for at least five years. It is unknown how many more “journalists” were paid by the imperialists to create lies about and hatred for Cuba. It is also unknown how many years and even decades this has been happening. But we can safely assume that these cases are not isolated in time or scope.
There can be no doubt that the Cuban Five—whose only “crime” was to risk their lives to stop terrorist attacks against Cuba—could not receive a fair trial in Miami. The fabricated media circus surrounding their case and the Cuban revolution in general was bought and paid for by the U.S. government.
