The press release below was issued by Liberation Newspaper, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five on May 5, 2011.
Cooperating organizations
Liberation newspaper
Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
U.S. government contracts reveal Miami journalists on the payroll
Announcing new website: www.ReportersforHire.org
A multi-year effort by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Liberation
newspaper has uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased
materials that reveal that the U.S. government was paying Miami-based
journalists who saturated the Miami media with reports that were highly
inflammatory and prejudicial to the Cuban Five at the same time as the
government conducted its prosecution of the men.
The
Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibits the U.S. government from funding
activities to influence and propagandize domestic public opinion (see 22
U.S.C. § 1461).
More than 2,200 pages of contracts between Miami journalists and Radio and TV Martí have been released thus far to Liberation
newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition. The
Broadcasting Board of Governors—an official U.S. government agency—and
its Office of Cuba Broadcasting have operated Radio Martí since 1985 and
TV Martí since 1990.
The
U.S. government has funneled nearly half a billion dollars into the
Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami. With an annual budget nearing $35
million, the OCB and BBG put on their payroll domestic journalists to
broadcast the same message inside and outside the United States on
Cuba-related issues, effectively violating the law against domestic
dissemination of U.S. propaganda.
These
contracts evidence the U.S. government’s payments to journalists in
Miami whose reports constituted a sustained effort to create an
atmosphere of hysteria and bias against Cuba and the Cuban Five. Three
of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón
Labañino—have filed habeas corpus appeals arguing that their
constitutional rights to due process were grossly undermined by the
government’s media operation in Miami and payments to the Miami
reporters.
The
Reporters for Hire website will soon be publishing other articles and
releasing additional documents obtained from the BBG exposing this
illegal government propaganda operation and manipulation of the justice
system.
