Ana Menendez: Don't Confuse Propaganda With Journalism

By ANA MENENDEZ, Miami Herald Columnist

Last week, two reporters and a freelancer were fired from El Nuevo Herald after The Miami Herald's Oscar Corral reported they were paid for pearances on Radio and TV Martí.

The dismissals have invigorated the opinion industry and subjected the people of this town to higher than usual doses of hypocrisy. The most amusing response comes, as usual, from Cuba, where the official press has been gloating about proof that the ''Miami Mafia'' and its journalists are  bought and paid for by the U.S. government. It would be a compelling argument, except for the fact that in Cuba, government hacks are the rule, not the exception. Of the small group of Cuban journalists who don't draw a government salary, many are, sadly, polishing their prose in jail.

The El Nuevo three were fired for entering into the sort of arrangement that defines journalism in a totalitarian state. Which brings us to more hypocrites: all the exile patriots who attack Corral for reporting the truth while simultaneously defending El Nuevo Herald's journalists for taking money from propagandists.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/ana_menendez/15504456.htm

Comments

[a thought...]

...and round and round we go.

[reporteraboricua]

Careful Ana! Remember what your bosses said yesterday at the meeting. Reporters CAN participate in what you identify and put down as "government propaganda" so long as they don't take money. It makes perfect sense! You can shout "death to Fidel" if you please, and as many times as Radio and TV Marti allow you to do so. It's just the money which is "wrong." Fail to see the logic? You might not be ready to be a publisher quite yet.

[usambcuba]

well stated Ana...

[usambcuba]

well stated Ana.

[usambcuba]

well stated Ana.

[Carlos]

Ana Menendez you could not have said it better. Excellent column.

[Carlos]

Ana Menendez you could not have said it better. Excellent column.

[Carlos]

Ms. Menendez could not have said it better. Excellent column.

[usambcuba]

Ana makes excellent points.

So Nonee, Manuel, take a look at this article link below. I will not repost it but I ask you - how do you win the mind and heart of the Cuban individual in this story?

Certainly not with an embargo or these crazy restrictions -

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/15513469.htm

[Merengoso]

Ms. Menendez' comments are incisive and her logic is airtight - no argument there, at least for me. I have been her faithful reader for a long time and admire her gutsy style. I only wonder why she appears compelled to remind her readers of her Cuban "exile" pedigree. I would also ask if El Nuevo plans to publish a Spanish translation of this particular edition of her column. Just curious.

[Merengoso]

Ms. Menendez' comments are incisive and her logic is airtight - no argument there, at least for me. I have been her faithful reader for a long time and admire her gutsy style. I only wonder why she appears compelled to remind her readers of her Cuban "exile" pedigree. I would also ask if El Nuevo plans to publish a Spanish translation of this particular edition of her column. Just curious.

[Merengoso]

Ms. Menendez' comments are incisive and her logic is airtight - no argument there, at least for me. I have been her faithful reader for a long time and admire her gutsy style. I only wonder why she appears compelled to remind her readers of her Cuban "exile" pedigree. I would also ask if El Nuevo plans to publish a Spanish translation of this particular edition of her column. Just curious.

[Merengoso]

Ms. Menendez' comments are incisive and her logic is airtight - no argument there, at least for me. I have been her faithful reader for a long time and admire her gutsy style. I only wonder why she appears compelled to remind her readers of her Cuban "exile" pedigree. I would also ask if El Nuevo plans to publish a Spanish translation of this particular edition of her column. Just curious.

[Alberto Fernandez]

Ana Menendez signed the petition to reinstate Jim DeFede at the Herald after he got fired. DeFede was Castro's biggest propagandist at the Herald. She is being just as dishonest and phony as he was.

[Alberto Fernandez]

Ana Menendez signed the petition requesting that the obnoxious Jim DeFede, the Herald's "biggest" Castro propagandist, be rehired after he was fired. She is a two-faced phony.

[Walter Lippmann]

If it's wrong for journalists in Miami to accept money from the United States government to produce anti-Castro propaganda, isn't it also wrong for journalists in Cuba to accept money from the United States government to produce anti-Castro propaganda?

Walter Lippmann, CubaNews
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews

[Walter Lippmann]

If it is wrong for journalists in Miami to take money from the United States government to produce anti-Castro materials, isn't it also wrong for journalists in Cuba also to take money from the United States government to produce anti-Castro materials in Cuba?

Walter Lippmann
http://www.walterlippmann.com

[a different thought]

Which brings us to more hypocrites: all the exile patriots who attack Corral for reporting the truth while simultaneously defending El Nuevo Herald's journalists for taking money from propagandists.

Like Jack's character said in A Few Good Men "You can't handle the truth...."

[usambcuba]

ADT - you had me laughing. Remembering some great lines in that movie and the exchange between Lt. Kafee (Cruise's character) and Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) - Yes the disgraced are like Col. Jessup.

[John Longfellow aka Lou Dobbs]

Oscar, they making you pick and choose your comments now. The over-heated debate is nothing to run from it. It is real-world. Your bosses probably got a call from some big shot. What you should do is one day is get your own blog. Everybody will follow, even the militants. Why? Because your blog is/was real.

Wait until, the transition starts.

Later bro, and good luck whatever happens. And keep your head up.

[Ariadna]

Where's my friend John? With so much hatred against Cuban-Americans that even changed my legal status. I'm missing you...
Interesting that Menendez asked Defede to be reinstated, but didn't ask the same for the journalists fired by El Nuevo.
Unlike the Cuban journalists, Defede committed a crime under the Florida law: to illegally record a conversation.
These journalists committed no crime: you can argue about the ethics of what they did, but you can't say they committed a crime.
I have nothing against Defede -I personally liked his columns. Shame he was replaced by Menendez.

[Ariadna]

Wonder why Corral closes its blog so often

[a different thought]

Some idiot stated:

Ana Menendez signed the petition to reinstate Jim DeFede at the Herald after he got fired. DeFede was Castro's biggest propagandist at the Herald. She is being just as dishonest and phony as he was.

Now please explain to me how Jim Defede, this county's biggest children's advocate, and a man who was not scared to print the truth a Castro propagandist????

You are on good drugs, dude, that you are obviously not sharing.

[a different thought]

Jim DeFede was one of this county's biggest children's advocates, plus he was not scared to print the truth, Ana, did the right thing if she signed that petittion. She should be proud of herself.

[a different thought]

Jim DeFede is one of this county's biggest children's advocate. Ana did the right thing!!!

[Manuel A. Tellechea]

THE HARTFORD COURANT

Bureau Chief No Longer On Radio Show
September 16, 2006

By WILLIAM WEIR, Courant Staff Writer

After questions were raised about his being paid by the government, The Courant's Washington bureau chief will no longer appear as a panelist on the Voice of America.

As part of an arrangement approved by The Courant, Washington Bureau Chief David Lightman had appeared frequently on "Issues In the News," a weekly radio show on the U.S. government-sponsored Voice of America. For each appearance he received $100. According to the VOA's website, his most recent appearance was Sept. 3.

"It can certainly be seen as a conflict, and that's why we're stopping it," said Clifford Teutsch, The Courant's editor.

Teutsch said Lightman's editors had approved the payment arrangement several years ago. The stipend was considered fair, he said, because topics discussed on the show were often outside his reporting duties and required research and preparation on his own time.

"We have complete confidence that he has handled these appearances with the same independent mindset that he brings to all his work," Teutsch said in a prepared statement. "However, we've decided it's best to end his participation rather than allow any question of a conflict to linger."

Questions about the payments were raised earlier this week when El Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language newspaper in Florida, reported that several well-known known journalists received government payments to appear on Voice of America. That article came out a few days after the Miami Herald published an article stating that three reporters from El Nuevo Herald had appeared on Radio Marti and TV Marti, which are financed by the U.S. government and broadcast programming to Cuba.

Reporters appearing on the Voice of America named in El Nuevo Herald's article included Thomas M. DeFrank, the head of the Washington bureau for the New York Daily News, and nationally syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer. The late Hugh Sidey of Time magazine and the late Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News were also listed as having received payment for appearing on Voice of America.

Kelly McBride, the ethics group leader for the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, called Lightman's situation an "approved conflict" because his bosses knew of the payments. "We all have conflicts of interest," she said. "When they arrive, we generally go to our bosses and examine what policies and procedures apply."

Were it her decision, McBride said, she would not have allowed the payment. "That's not universal," she said, but probably the majority opinion among editors.

Though Lightman appeared regularly on "Issues in the News," he did not appear every week, said Michael Regan, Lightman's editor.

There has never been a question about Lightman's fairness as a reporter, Regan said, and to think that his integrity would be compromised by a $100 payment is "pretty far-fetched." He added that the same could be said for many of the other reporters who have appeared regularly on the show.

But times have changed since Lightman's arrangement was approved, Regan said. In recent years, the Bush administration has become particularly aggressive in promoting its policies through the news media.

"I wish we reviewed this a while ago, on our own," he said.

[Manuel A. Tellechea]

Lightman. Never did a name better fit a man. This unctuous little hypocrite, who found himself in the same or worse "ethical" dilemma than the three fired Cuban-American journalists, did not come to their defense, but, rather, fabricated nebulous distinctions between their conduct and his, which, ultimately, amounted to "I am a member of the media elite and they are not." Guess what? He was right. He is above fray. Not only did his newspaper not fire or discipline him, but in the article announcing his withdrawal from the Voice of America praised him effusively and attested to his absolute fairness and comportment beyond reproach. I guess they must have listened to the hundreds of programs in which he appeared to verify that fact, or, else, they just assumed that he would not "sell out" for $100. That would be an insult, indeed. East Coast reporters (let alone Washington bureau chiefs) sell at a much higher price.

But Lightman has been appearing weekly on the VOA "for years" and little benjamins do add up pretty fast. If they had calculated the total, I should not be surprised if it surpassed the amount received by some or all the Cuban-American journalists. But the Courant was interested in protecting their employee not hanging him out to dry.

Another interesting aspect of the Hartford Courant article is the introduction of a term with which I was not familiar (and certainly the Herald's editors weren't, either): "Kelly McBride, the ethics group leader for the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, called Lightman's situation an 'approved conflict' because his bosses knew of the payments." (Lightman had supposedly informed them three years ago).

Of course, The Miami Herald editors knew about the 3 Cuban-Americans connections to Radio and TV Marti at least four years ago. We have to take the Courant's word for their having known about Lightman's involvement with VOA three years ago. In the case of The Miami Herald, however, it is a matter of public record. That is, it was published in the Herald four years ago.

I do not know if The Hartford Courant is fairer than The Miami Herald or simply learned by the Herald's mistakes. In any case, they went out of their way to shield Lightman whereas The Miami Herald acted with upmost malice towards its own reporters.

[Manuel A. Tellechea]

THE DAILY PULP
Bob Norman's Blog
September 15, 2006

The Herald Knew It, Then Blew It

Castelló After the Miami Herald broke the story that three reporters working for its Spanish-language newspaper, El Nuevo Herald, had been fired for receiving propaganda money from Radio and TV Marti, the question was inevitable: What did the Herald know and when did it know it?

After implying in reporter Oscar Corral’s breaking story last Friday that the Herald was completely oblivious to the fact that its reporters were taking money from the government’s anti-Castro media outlets for so many years, the truth is slowly trickling out. The newspaper company’s journalistic brass clearly knew more than it initially let on.

In the latest development, Herald Managing Editor Dave Wilson has admitted to his staff and to the Pulp that he and other newsroom leaders made a mistake in not reporting more about what the newspaper knew about those payments in Oscar Corral’s published this past Friday.

More on that below (including the text of Wilson’s contrite message to staff on the matter), but first let’s look at the way the issue was addressed in the initial Corral story that sent shockwaves throughout the country’s journalistic community:

El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castelló said he hadn’t been aware that the three writers were being paid by the federal government.

‘’I lament very much that I had not been informed before by them,'’ Castelló said. “We discussed the situation with them and they were both dismissed immediately.'’

Okay, so the folks at the Herald were clueless, right?

Not at all. The problem with Castelló’s quote was that it wasn’t true. At the very least, the executive editor knew about the payments to one of the reporters, Olga Connor, since 2002, when both the Herald and El Nuevo Herald published stories about her work and even cited the fact that she had a $45,770 contract with Radio Marti.

How do we know this? Castelló admitted it in a Corral article published Tuesday in which Connor complained that Herald managers were cognizant of her work for Marti. From the piece:

El Nuevo Herald Executive Editor Humberto Castelló said Monday in an e-mail responding to a reporter’s questions that he did not dismiss Connor in 2002 because she was a freelancer.

Asked if he agreed with the company’s decision Thursday to terminate her contract, he answered in Spanish: “I don’t agree with the decision taken.'’

First he didn’t know and now he did know but decided not to do anything about it. The Herald never addressed the contradiction — instead it just printed the differing versions of Castelló’s account without explanation. It didn’t go unnoticed in the newsroom, though. On the Herald’s internal message board, a reporter asked the following question:

“Just curious: How is it that El Nuevo Herald managers can claim not to know staffers were getting paid by Radio/TV Marti — and we print such claims uncontested — when BOTH El Nuevo and The Herald in English first disclosed payments to Olga Connor four years ago?”

Shortly thereafter came a reply from Miami Herald Managing Editor Dave Wilson. The Pulp obtained his explanation, which was published on the same newsroom message board:

“We were aware of the 2002 clip on Thursday evening when the story was coming together. That’s the good news. In the fairly hectic writing and editing process to get this into Friday’s paper we neglected to make sure we mentioned those clips in Oscar Corral’s story. That’s an oversight I wish hadn’t happened and I’m as much to blame as anyone. I was in on the discussions about the ’02 clips but in the final edit, I didn’t realize we hadn’t mentioned the clips.”

That’s quite an oversight. The article, after all, was full of quotes from media ethicists about how taking the money was wrong. The fact that the newspaper had reported four years before about one of the reporters accepting money and did nothing about it would seem particularly relevent.

But it also would have pointed a lot of questions at the Miami Herald. Readers might have asked: Why did the newspaper suddenly care about these payments now if it didn’t care so much in 2002? When did it grow ethics?

And not only did the Herald fail to include information about the 2002 article, but it also left in the Castelló quote that basically denied it. I asked Wilson about it.

“It wasn’t a false quote,” Wilson told me. “He said what he said.”

I understood the distinction: The quote was genuine, though the content was false. I asked him what the newspaper was going to do about Castelló ’s apparent lie. “You’re going to have to ask the publisher about that,” he said.

When I tried to get through to Publisher Jesus Diaz, however, I was directed to Herald legal counsel Robert Beatty, who didn’t return my phone call.

I asked Wilson if the 2002 articles were left out because they were so, um, inconvenient to Herald management. There was a long pause, before he said, “Do you think I’m going to dignify that question with a response?”

Fair enough. He said he learned about the clips on the day before the story was published. “A reporter came across it in a clip search,” Wilson told me.

I was struck by Wilson’s use of the word “hectic” in describing the day before the original story was published. This was an article based on months, even years, of reporting. Why was it so hectic then? I asked the managing editor if it was true that the story was rushed into the newspaper because the Chicago Tribune was close to publishing a story of its own on the payments.

“I wouldn’t say ‘rushed,’” he said. “I felt there was a sense of urgency in that the story would get out.”

He confirmed that the newspaper was aware that a Tribune reporter was working on the story, but he was mostly concerned that after Corral started talking to sources and subjects about his findings, any number of media outlets might get wind of it. He also told me that a reporter from another newspaper — he said he didn’t recall which newspaper, but knew it wasn’t the Tribune — contacted the Herald about the story on Thursday, adding to that “sense of urgency.”

In that regard, the Herald story might be seen as a preemptive strike: Sensing that another newspaper was about to expose three of its reporters — along with several other South Florida reporters on the government’s payroll — the newspaper ran a big front page story breaking the news and prominently announcing the firing of those three reporters. Sort of like a good, if painful, P.R. move.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree with the firings. Accepting money from a propaganda agency is a line that simply can’t be crossed. Herald managers, to keep any credibility El Nuevo Herald might have left, had to take a strong stand.

But the circumstances under which it was done are certainly suspicious. Former Miami Herald columnist and current radio and TV personality Jim DeFede, himself a casualty of a harsh and unfair firing by the newspaper, certainly has a point when he says he feels the reporters were treated unfairly by management, that they were essentially taken out back and shot once they became a liability.

Especially when the managers knew, or should have known, about it years before.

Comment by Manuel A. Tellechea:

Very few men of whatever political stripe are fair enough or just enough to set aside their own sincerely-held convictions and look dispassionately at an issue without partisan blinders. You are such a man and a rara avis indeed. There is a trend in journalism today to twist the truth to validate one’s position rather than let it lead you to conclusions that may, in fact, weaken or invalidate your position. Men of honor—how anachronistic that phrase sounds today!—do not care whether they are proved right so long as they themselves do no wrong.

It is now known that Cuban-American journalists were not the only ones compensated by the government for their contributions to government-sponsored foreign broadcasting. Since 1942, hundreds and perhaps even thousands of U.S. journalists have participated in Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcasts and been compensated for their time, as government regulations require. The Miami Herald article Of Sept 8 focused exclusively on Cuban-American journalists who had accepted such payments from Radio and TV Marti, which functions under the same charter and is answerable to the same governing-board as is the VOA. When asked why Cubans had been specifically targetted, the Herald spokesman answered that their story focused just on Radio and TV Marti. That, of course, was the problem: the forest was ignored for the trees. But the Herald wasn’t interested in taking down the forest, just ten specific Cuban-American journalists. But let us accept the Herald’s tendentious rationale: the story was limited just to journalists who accepted payment from Radio and TV Marti. Is it conceivable that ONLY Cuban-Americans accepted renumeration from Radio and TV Marti? I do not doubt that many non-Cuban Latin American journalists as well as Spanish-speaking American cubanologists and other experts have also been compensated for their work at Radio and TV Marti (I know of a few names myself—one of which currently works for The Herald—but I am not into naming names). But why didn’t The Herald name them in their initial story if only to avoid the appearance that it was Cuban-Americans and only Cuban-Americans who had been specifically targetted?

At this point, given all the lies, dissimulations and contraditions that surround this story so far (and more are yet to be exposed), the right thing to do is to reinstate the fired journalists and give them what they never got — a fair hearing. Surely they are entitled to due process in our democratic society. Or is the McClatchy corporation no different from Fidel Castro in the way it treats its journalists.

[Herald Watch]

Mr. Lippman,

If it is wrong for journalists in Miami to take money from the United States government to produce anti-Castro materials, isn't it also wrong for journalists in Havana to take money from the Cuban government to produce anti-American materials in Cuba?

Just wondering.

[aussie]

Posted on Sun, Sep. 17, 2006

Finally, someone appreciates journalists' work

By CARL HIAASEN

Like many taxpayers, I'd always thought Radio and TV Martí was just another political boondoggle, squandering millions of dollars while fruitlessly beaming anti-Castro programming to Cuba.

Now we find out that the U.S. government-run stations are actually running a charity for needy journalists, at least 10 of whom have been paid to appear on their programs.

Some people might call this corrupting the press; I call it compassionate conservatism.

Is there a more underpaid, ragged and dispirited sector of the American work force than reporters? At long last we've got an administration that appreciates our toil and sacrifice and reaches out to help.

Look what it did for Armstrong Williams, a newspaper columnist and conservative talk-show host. Back in 2004, he got $240,000 from the government to babble wonderful compliments about President Bush's No Child Left Behind education program.

Many journalists called Williams a sellout and a prostitute, but they were probably just envious. The same sort of thing is happening now to the reporters moonlighting for Radio and TV Martí.

Two of those who accepted money from the stations were fired from their day jobs at El Nuevo Herald. Said Publisher Jesús Díaz Jr.: ``I personally don't believe that integrity and objectivity can be assured if any of our reporters receive monetary compensation from any entity that he or she may cover or have covered, but particularly if it's a government agency.''

Since Díaz is also my boss, I should be careful how I put this, but: Lighten up, bro!

You're right: Once a reporter starts cashing a government paycheck, his or her credibility as a public watchdog is shot.

But how about a teeny exception for TV Martí? Lots of folks in the newsroom could use the extra dough, and nobody will ever see them on the air because Castro jams the signals.

Over the last five years, while staff reporter Pablo Alfonso wrote columns and covered Cuba for El Nuevo Herald, he was getting paid nearly $175,000 to host programs on Radio and TV Martí. During that same period, staff writer Wilfredo Cancio collected almost $15,000.

The fact that it took so long to catch them tells you how puny the audience is. You've heard of Pirate Radio? This is Pipsqueak Radio.

Both TV and Radio Martí broadcast from a blimp in the Lower Keys until it was popped by a hurricane last year. Then a plane from the Pennsylvania National Guard was procured to transmit to Cuba for a whopping four hours on weekends.

Now the programs are being beamed by a specially equipped private aircraft flying out of Key West. After Fidel Castro underwent surgery, the broadcasts were increased to six times a week, but even that failed to kill off the Cuban leader.

Some parts of the island do pick up transmissions from Radio Martí, though interviews with recent arrivals indicate that its listenership has dipped.

As for TV Martí, it's basically a ghost station that few in Cuba can receive because of the electronic jamming. Since it began ''broadcasting'' in 1990, TV Martí has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 million. Naturally, Congress keeps shoveling money at it.

Radio and TV Martí are currently funded at about $37 million annually, including $10 million for the airplane that flies around transmitting the signals, which may still be easily blocked.

That leaves about $27 million lying around for executive salaries, studio production and talent. There are plenty of U.S. journalists, including me, who are eminently qualified to host TV programs that no one will ever see.

Getting paid to say snarky things about Castro would be an easy gig. For years I've done it for free, characterizing El Comandante as a windbag, geezer, liar, despot and all-around phony. I never received a dime from Uncle Sam, even when my columns were properly punctuated.

But now, thanks to the Bush administration's generous Outreach Initiative for Ethically Muddled Reporters, financial opportunities abound. So does temptation.

According to a report last week in El Nuevo Herald, numerous magazine and newspaper journalists in the English-language press have accepted payments to appear on Voice of America radio, the government's official overseas megaphone. Among them: syndicated columnist Georgie Ann Geyer, Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News and David Lightman, chief of The Hartford Courant's Washington bureau.

These folks are probably in hot water today because of people like my boss, who cling to this old-fashioned notion that the mere appearance of sliding into bed with the institutions we cover is intolerable.

Party poopers! Do they really believe that a journalist's integrity can be compromised for a lousy $175,000?

Where's the trust? Where's the compassion? More important, where's my damn check?

[aussie]

Posted on Sun, Sep. 17, 2006

Finally, someone appreciates journalists' work

By CARL HIAASEN

Like many taxpayers, I'd always thought Radio and TV Martí was just another political boondoggle, squandering millions of dollars while fruitlessly beaming anti-Castro programming to Cuba.

Now we find out that the U.S. government-run stations are actually running a charity for needy journalists, at least 10 of whom have been paid to appear on their programs.

Some people might call this corrupting the press; I call it compassionate conservatism.

Is there a more underpaid, ragged and dispirited sector of the American work force than reporters? At long last we've got an administration that appreciates our toil and sacrifice and reaches out to help.

Look what it did for Armstrong Williams, a newspaper columnist and conservative talk-show host. Back in 2004, he got $240,000 from the government to babble wonderful compliments about President Bush's No Child Left Behind education program.

Many journalists called Williams a sellout and a prostitute, but they were probably just envious. The same sort of thing is happening now to the reporters moonlighting for Radio and TV Martí.

Two of those who accepted money from the stations were fired from their day jobs at El Nuevo Herald. Said Publisher Jesús Díaz Jr.: ``I personally don't believe that integrity and objectivity can be assured if any of our reporters receive monetary compensation from any entity that he or she may cover or have covered, but particularly if it's a government agency.''

Since Díaz is also my boss, I should be careful how I put this, but: Lighten up, bro!

You're right: Once a reporter starts cashing a government paycheck, his or her credibility as a public watchdog is shot.

But how about a teeny exception for TV Martí? Lots of folks in the newsroom could use the extra dough, and nobody will ever see them on the air because Castro jams the signals.

Over the last five years, while staff reporter Pablo Alfonso wrote columns and covered Cuba for El Nuevo Herald, he was getting paid nearly $175,000 to host programs on Radio and TV Martí. During that same period, staff writer Wilfredo Cancio collected almost $15,000.

The fact that it took so long to catch them tells you how puny the audience is. You've heard of Pirate Radio? This is Pipsqueak Radio.

Both TV and Radio Martí broadcast from a blimp in the Lower Keys until it was popped by a hurricane last year. Then a plane from the Pennsylvania National Guard was procured to transmit to Cuba for a whopping four hours on weekends.

Now the programs are being beamed by a specially equipped private aircraft flying out of Key West. After Fidel Castro underwent surgery, the broadcasts were increased to six times a week, but even that failed to kill off the Cuban leader.

Some parts of the island do pick up transmissions from Radio Martí, though interviews with recent arrivals indicate that its listenership has dipped.

As for TV Martí, it's basically a ghost station that few in Cuba can receive because of the electronic jamming. Since it began ''broadcasting'' in 1990, TV Martí has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 million. Naturally, Congress keeps shoveling money at it.

Radio and TV Martí are currently funded at about $37 million annually, including $10 million for the airplane that flies around transmitting the signals, which may still be easily blocked.

That leaves about $27 million lying around for executive salaries, studio production and talent. There are plenty of U.S. journalists, including me, who are eminently qualified to host TV programs that no one will ever see.

Getting paid to say snarky things about Castro would be an easy gig. For years I've done it for free, characterizing El Comandante as a windbag, geezer, liar, despot and all-around phony. I never received a dime from Uncle Sam, even when my columns were properly punctuated.

But now, thanks to the Bush administration's generous Outreach Initiative for Ethically Muddled Reporters, financial opportunities abound. So does temptation.

According to a report last week in El Nuevo Herald, numerous magazine and newspaper journalists in the English-language press have accepted payments to appear on Voice of America radio, the government's official overseas megaphone. Among them: syndicated columnist Georgie Ann Geyer, Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News and David Lightman, chief of The Hartford Courant's Washington bureau.

These folks are probably in hot water today because of people like my boss, who cling to this old-fashioned notion that the mere appearance of sliding into bed with the institutions we cover is intolerable.

Party poopers! Do they really believe that a journalist's integrity can be compromised for a lousy $175,000?

Where's the trust? Where's the compassion? More important, where's my damn check?

[Walter Lippmann]

The MIAMI HERALD's publisher doesn't address the obvious question: if it's wrong for journalists in Miami to take U.S. government funding to produce anti-Castro propaganda, isn't it wrong for journalists in Cuba to take U.S. government funding to produce anti-Castro propaganda?

If journalists in the U.S. had taken funding from the government of Cuba, they would have been arrested, charged and, if convicted, put behind bars. After all, that is exactly what happened with those much-vaunted "independent journalists" which the Herald has touted for so long. They took money from a hostile foreign power and got caught in the act. They were as little "independent" as were those HERALD and EL NUEVO journalists whom publisher Diaz has just fired.

The HERALD's publisher isn't this naive. He knows that Radio Marti, a U.S. government institution, pays journalists in Cuba as well as in Miami to produce the anti-Castro propaganda they are in business to promote. It's hard, in light of this, to know why the Herald at this moment decided to make these revelations, but it remains quite a good thing that these facts have now been publicly documented. At the same time, the HERALD shouldn't hold all these documents inside. They should all be posted to the web so that every interested reader with access to the internet can read them on their own.

Walter Lippmann, CubaNews
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews
===========================================

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sun, Sep. 17, 2006

FROM THE PUBLISHER
A free press can require painful choices

By Jesus Diaz Jr.
jdiaz@MiamiHerald.com

[John Longfellow aka Lou Dobbs]

Oh my gaawd Oscar. You are doing a disservice by blocking your blog. Yes, you and Ana are getting called commie spies. But you are not a reporter in Iraq. You are not a black or white liberal reporter in the deep South, who is reporting on the civil rights movements, in the 1960's.

You are showing a lot of weakness, and i am disappointed. This is not the Miami 70's,80's, or even the 90's. Most Miami Cubans dont give a damn. I saw on CH10, where a Cuban exile was sailing to the shores of Cuba to protest this summit. He couldnt even fill up his seats for the sail.

Finally, you let Val, and Henry win, when your blog mirrors their censored blogs. All you have to do is hand our the deletion duties to a few trusted friends. And delete all of Val, and Henry bullcrap. I will in the future clean up my language. I just got really, really, mad when i saw them attack you. If you noticed, i didnt get invovled until they started with their implied threats towards.

Anyway, i hope you start allowing comments sooner, rather than later. Just start deleting the threats, and the gay talk by Henry Gomez, and your blog will be fine. Or just, create your own blog.

One more point, when i was in the military. Once a week we always gathered as a unit to discuss any racial tensions in our unit. Often times it would get heated, with "true" threats. But the dialogue was necessary, as the military is the most diverse of any organization in the world.
Point is, you dont run from dialogue, you run to it.

Keep Your Head Up Oscar,

John

P.S.

This email is for you personally, as i dont know how to email you privately.

[Manuel A. Tellechea]

THE MIAMI HERALD
FROM THE PUBLISHER
September 17, 2006

“A free press can require painful choices”
By Jesus Diaz Jr.
jdiaz@MiamiHerald.com

In order to have democracy, a country must enjoy freedom of the press. [In order to have freedom of the press, the millionaires who own the presses and their lacqueys must convince us that a corporation’s interests also represent the interests of their community or the nation at large.] The past week has been painful for many in the Cuban community and for employees at The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. [It has been principally painful, however, for the 3 journalists you arbitrarily fired and their families. You and your employees, who did not have the basic decency to protest their firings in a formal petition, are the cause of their pain]. Many have questioned the motives behind the dismissal of two El Nuevo Herald reporters and a freelance writer who did a significant amount of work for us while simultaneously working for and being paid by Radio and TV Martí. [By “significant work” what you really mean is fair, impartial and objective work that was beyond reproach. Since you could not impugn their work for The Herald (and didn’t even try), you chose instead to assassinate their character].

I approved the dismissals because, as the publisher of these newspapers, I am deeply committed to the separation between government and a free press. [The only thing that you were “deeply committed” to was beating out the Chicago Tribune on this story]. Further, our employees violated our conflict-of-interest rules. [You have thus far refused to make public these “conflict of interests rules.” When were they adopted? By whom? How specifically do they apply to these three journalist? Where, in short, does it say in your “Rules” that reporters or freelancers are forbidden from working for government-sponsored foreign broadcasting? It is certainly not in the contracts that these journalists signed]. All of our journalists acknowledge and agree to adhere to our policies, which include this statement: [Which is it, “rules” or “policies.” Rules are not the same thing as policies. Rules are immutable whereas policies are whatever tickles the publisher’s fancy at any time].

We demonstrate our principles by operating with fairness, accuracy and independence, and by avoiding conflicts of interest, as well as the appearance of conflicts of interest. [Like Caesar’s wife?] Our news operations will be diligent in their pursuit of the truth, without regard to special interests. [Then you have certainly violated The Herald’s principles (which is it now? Rules? Policies? Principles?) by acting yourself without “fairness, accuracy or independence” in this matter. You have already admitted, after initially lying about it, that The Herald knew about the journalists’ involvement with Radio Marti as early as 2002, when The Herald actually published a story which presented as a laudable activity what you would later characterize as a conflict of interests and assault on freedom of the press. What were the “rules, policies and principles” in 2002? When did they change? And did you ever apprise anyone that they had changed? I don’t mean the way you “apprised” the 3 journalist 30 minutes before you fired them. The victims of Stalin’s purges were accorded more due process than the 3 reporters you fired].

Our decisions, painful as they were, reaffirm our commitment that reporters and editors at our newspapers are free of even the hint of a conflict of interest. [Well, that’s the second time that you mention how “painful” your decision was. Perhaps it might not have been a “painful” decision if it had been a reasoned and thoughtful decision. But you made it “painful” by your own premature and unmeasured acts. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that no other newspaper in the country has fired or disciplined reporters involved with Radio Marti, VOA or Radio Liberty (not to mention PBS or NPR)? Perhaps they don’t have the same high ethical standards that you do. Or, more likely, they are not as draconian, unfair and undemocratic as you are].

It is by sustaining this transparency [What “transparency?” Due process for these journalists would have been transparency. Kicking them out the back door isn’t transparency]. that we can assure that our reporters will continue to function as impartial and independent watchdogs in our community [Has anyone ever suggested let alone proved that the fired journalists’ reportage was ever anything else?] and tackle investigations leading to stories such as the House of Lies series, which disclosed corruption in the Miami-Dade Housing Authority, and Fire Watch, which uncovered abuses in Miami-Dade’s fire-watch program. [That’s right, pat yourselves on the back; nobody else is going to. Whatever your past scoops may have been, they do not excuse this miscarriage of justice].

As a child in Cuba, I lived under a totalitarian government where freedom of speech did not exist. I remember my parents telling my sister and me, over and over, ‘’Do not say anything bad about the government'’ for fear of reprisal. I do not want my daughter to ever have to say that to her children or to her grandchildren. [You do not live now in a totalitarian regime, although you yourself act with the same star-chamber arbitrariness characteristic of all such regimes, including Fidel Castro’s].

I am committed to fair and independent journalism because I firmly believe that a totalitarian government cannot survive under the spotlight of a free press. [If you are “committed to fair and independent journalism” then you should practice it for a change. What little free press there is in Cuba must struggle across the skies of the Florida Straits to reach Cuba. You would stifle and silence that lonely voice by denying it the support of some of the best U.S. journalists who bring to Radio and TV Marti the fairness and objectivity which, again, none has ever suggested that their reportage lacked]. Throughout this past week, I have been reminded that a dictator such as Fidel Castro would not be in power if Cuba had a free press. [Fidel Castro came to power precisely because the U.S. had a free press. Ever heard of Herbert Matthews? A free press is only as good as the commitment to freedom of individual journalists. The three fired reporters have shown their commitment to freedom in word and deed time and time again. Have you?]

A SHORT JOURNEY [Too short].

History has proved that the journey from an open society to a totalitarian regime can be a short one. [Full of profundities, aren’t you? How exactly did you get your job? I’ve heard of all ten journalists that Corral’s story smeared, but I’ve never heard of you. How did you get to be The Herald’s publisher? By flying under the radar? Well, you did a very good job there]. When journalists receive regular payments for government-sponsored reporting while working for free-press outlets, we take a step down this dangerous path. [Professional journalists, hundreds if not thousands of them, have worked for government-sponsored radio since the Voice of America was founded in 1942. On exactly what “dangerous path” has this taken us? The end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe? Why did you specifically target Cuban-American journalists for your censure? Didn’t non-Cuban Latin Americans and Spanish-speaking Anglo experts also appear on Radio and TV Marti? Why weren’t they named? For that matter, why weren’t paid-contributors to the Voice of America and Radio Liberty named? They work for the same government and the checks they receive are also identical].

Let me be clear: [Now you are going to start?].

• The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald are committed to fair and independent reporting. [However many times you repeat it won’t make it true].

• The institutional position of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, as expressed on our editorial pages, has been to support the work and goals of Radio and TV Martí. [Except when you try to sabotage their work by denying them the services of those who allow them to fulfill their mission with professionalism and fairness. Your now often-repeated “support” for Radio Marti includes portraying it as a “propaganda machine” with which no reputable ethical journalist would be connected, and with which The Miami Herald, in particular, is loathe to associate even indirectly. With “friends” like you, Radio and TV Marti better watch their backs].

I also wish to clarify our position on a number of questions and rumors, which we have heard over the past week:

• The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and our parent company, McClatchy, have no plans to open a bureau inside Cuba. [Really, hasn’t that been your expressed objective for many years? Did that objective change at the same time you changed your “rules, objectives, policies”?].

• Cuba rejects or does not respond to our requests for visas for our reporters. [So you are trying?]. As such, any reporting by Miami Herald staff members from Cuba comes from those who have made their way into the country as tourists, requiring us to run their stories without bylines in order to protect their identities. [Wasn’t Oscar Corral recently in Cuba? Is that where he “researched” his Sept. 8 story?].

• We do not know why the Cuban TV program Mesa Redonda commented on the essence of our story before it ran. [So you admit that this “rumor” at least is true]. We are confident this information did not come from anyone at The Miami Herald, and we believe that Mesa Redonda may have gained this information from a review of our public-records requests, since these requests are available to the public. [On what grounds are you “confident” that no one at the Miami Herald informed the Castro regime on your story prior to publication? Or, for that matter, how “confident” are you that the flow of information wasn’t the other way? There are no coincidences in this world. As a journalist, you should be a little more inquisitive. That’s “inquisitive,” inquisitorial].

I am concerned about our readers’ reaction to columnists Carl Hiaasen’s and Ana Menendez’s opinion columns in today’s paper. [Yes, you should be concerned about columns that are inflammatory and unfair. And you shouldn’t write unfair and inflammatory columns yourself like the present one]. My first reaction was to keep both columns, which represent Carl’s and Ana’s opinions, from running in the paper at this time because I believe they may inflame sentiments in the Cuban community. [So you considered practicing censorship because you and you alone know what’s best for the community. Have you ever considered that truth may be what is best?].

LIMITING FREEDOM [At The Herald].

However, many in our organization have told me that doing so would be the equivalent of suffocating the very freedom of the press I was trying to protect when we dismissed the El Nuevo Herald reporters. Therefore, the articles are published in today’s paper. [In this case, you listened to your subalterns’ opinions. You, obviously, were not as openminded about the 3 fired journalists, because several editors, including the executive editor of El Nuevo Herald, objected to your unilateral decision].

I am saddened by the pain [The pain never stops for you, does it?] these events have caused in our community during the past week. [Not that “these events caused,” but that your own actions caused; and you shouldn’t be “saddened,” but sorry]. We are not perfect, [Really? You had us all fooled] but rest assured that we will continue to work diligently for the betterment of our community. [Is that a threat?].

Jesús Diaz Jr. is the publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.

[Jesse K.]

Ana, excellent work in a community that supports book banning. I sometimes find it amusing to see how badly the US government and Exile politicos have handled the Castro rule for the past 47 years.

It started with an Embargo that is well and long known for providing polictical subsidy for his regime. Now, the propagandists and proclamations from Miami on how Castro's successors should govern. Still can't do anything right!!

Maybe, Ana will make this crowd use their brains for once.

[Who Knew]

Oscar - the mere fact of posting all of these "opinions" in your defense make your work even more disappointing. Don't try to hide behind someone else and their commentary. The MH already knew that reporters contribute to other news outlets...you did not break anything -- you have only succeeded in giving the Regime something to applaud you for...If that's what you wanted, then you got it.

It is disappointing that as a Cuban you felt it necessary to help the Regime rather than helping the oppressed Cuban people. You can argue you did this for the sake of "news" that required reporting....but it is just not true.

Am wondering if Granma had the story posted before it even ran in the MH.....

[Manuel A. Tellechea]

A witch-hunt gone wrong
By Henry Louis Gomez
September 18, 2006

On September 8th, 2006, Miami Herald reporter Oscar Corral launched a witch-hunt against eleven fellow journalists with the full consent of his bosses Jesus Díaz Jr., the president of The Miami Herald Publishing Company and Tom Fiedler, the Herald’s executive editor. The headline read, “10 Miami journalists take U.S. pay” (apparently the Herald’s headline editor can’t count). The sin they were accused of committing was violating a ''sacred trust'' between journalists and the public according to Díaz Jr.,

You see, these eleven soldiers of truth had been moonlighting for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), the governmental office that operates Radio Martí and TV Martí, two stations that are the only source of credible uncensored news and information that many Cubans have access to.

Using anonymous “experts on journalistic ethics” as their cover, Corral and his superiors alleged that the objectivity of the eleven journalists would, by necessity, be in question since they cover Cuba and Cuba-U.S. relations and were being paid by an agency of the U.S. government. It looked like an open and shut case for Corral and his masters, a clear conflict of interest. Two El Nuevo Herald journalists (the Spanish-language sister publication of The Miami Herald) were fired and a third who was a freelancer was also terminated. Soon the official Cuban press picked up on the story and so did the rest of the America-hating international media. Even anti-Castro Cuban Americans were left shaking their heads.

But Corral et al did not realize that they had sprung open a Pandora’s box of scrutiny on themselves. As the facts of Martí Moonlighters have come out, it has been one embarrassment after another for The Miami Herald.

Let’s start with Corral’s original shoddy reporting. Photographs of 10 journalists were on display, yet the names of two of the faces in the ‘gallery of the accused’ were not mentioned anywhere in the body of the article, while the 11th defendant was named but not pictured. Are you following me?

Corral also failed to make a distinction between reporters and columnists/commentators. There are obviously different standards of objectivity for the two jobs. Most egregious was the inclusion in the article of the brilliant syndicated columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner, whose column the Herald purchases. Montaner is neither from Miami nor is he employed by any media outlet. He writes columns, which are then sold to numerous outlets worldwide by his agency. Montaner has no obligation to disclose who purchases his material or otherwise pays him to expound on the subject of his expertise, Cuba. Montaner explained this quite clearly in a letter he wrote to El Nuevo Herald’s executive editor, Humberto Castelló which was published in that paper the next day and not in The Miami Herald, the newspaper responsible for the hatchet job, until 3 days after that. Obviously The Miami Herald agrees that Montaner did nothing wrong because he is still listed as a contributing columnist on the Herald’s web site and the paper continues to run his columns. When I asked Díaz Jr., via email, if Mr. Montaner deserved an apology I received no comment.

Olga Connor was a freelance culture reporter for El Nuevo Herald. The paper terminated its relationship with her after Corral “discovered” that she was being paid to host a radio show for OCB. There was one problem though, an enterprising reporter from The Miami Herald had written a story about Radio Marti in 2002 in which it was mentioned that Ms. Connor hosted a twice-weekly radio show for the station and was paid $440 per show. Ms. Connor was working as freelancer for El Nuevo Herald at the time too. For four years Ms. Connor continued to moonlight for Radio Marti without any complaint from her supervisors. That is until September 8th when her bosses apparently had a crisis of conscience.

Then there’s the case of Omar Claro, one of the faces that appeared in the September 8th condemnation without any charges. On September 9th The Herald, apparently realizing its gaffe, published a follow-up article by Corral to level the appropriate accusations. Omar Claro is a sportscaster for the local Univisión station. Mr. Claro’s violation was that he was also a sportscaster for Radio/TV Martí. That’s right, because of his part-time job with OCB, his objectivity about why Alex Rodríguez, the third baseman for the New York Yankees, was slumping, and other such important issues in the world of sports, was now in question. Of course this was the conflict of interest of utmost importance in a city where the voice of Miami Dolphins, Jimmy Cefalo (a paid employee of the team), is also the sports director and lead sports anchor for one of the leading television stations.

As the days passed, things only got worse for Corral and the top brass at the Herald. On September 12th, a columnist for El Nuevo Herald named Ernesto Betancourt, who happened to be the first director of Radio Martí back in the 80s, resigned his position but not before revealing in his final column that Radio Martí faced the same issues, regarding the compensation part-time journalists to round out the station’s personnel, as the venerated Voice of America (VOA) did with its worldwide network of “stringers”. He said the VOAs controversy ultimately died down and payments to journalists that contributed reports or sat in on panels were deemed acceptable by all involved.

I’m assuming that Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun sensed a bigger story was still untold when he scooped Corral’s “scoop” and reported on September 12th that many Washington journalists accept appearance fees for participating in VOA broadcasts. Among them are Martin Schram, a columnist for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain and David Lightman of the Hartford Courant. The two journalists tried to distance themselves from the OCB “scandal” by saying that the stations run by OCB are “ideological” and that VOA is “nothing like Radio Martí.” But they couldn’t be more wrong. You see, VOA and OCB are both under the authority of International Broadcasting Bureau. Not only that, Radio/TV Martí are, by federal statute, required to adhere to the same code of journalistic ethics as VOA, a code that, unlike The Miami Herald’s, is public record. The aim of OCB is identical to that of VOA, namely to provide credible and uncensored information to people that would otherwise have no access to it. Lightman’s bosses apparently didn’t see the distinction either as it was reported in his paper on September 16th that he would no longer be a contributor on VOA programs.

Surely the higher-ups at 1 Herald Plaza were thinking to themselves “But still, the Martí Moonlighters had a connection to the federal government and that can’t be right. Right?” Yet they should have known that they themselves did not have clean hands in the matter, because it turns out the top man at The Herald, Jesus Díaz Jr., sits on the advisory board of the Cuba Transition Project (CTP), a government funded group. When asked why that is not a conflict of interest, Mr. Díaz Jr. told me in an email that he is neither a “reporter nor an editor” nor does he “work in the newsroom.” But his subordinate Humberto Castello, the executive editor of El Nuevo Herald is an editor and, while his office might not be in the newsroom, he is the man responsible for its output, and he too sits on the advisory board of the Cuba Transition Project. Castelló did not respond to my questions about his role on the advisory board but Díaz Jr. claims that he has never attended a meeting and only received materials from the CTP. When asked what was expected of him as a member of an advisory board, apart from reading materials, Mr. Díaz Jr. declined to respond. Díaz Jr. and Castelló should have remembered the old saw about people living in glass houses with a propensity for throwing stones. I hear a shattering sound.

About three weeks before Corral’s article was published, Reinaldo Taladrid, one of Fidel Castro’s flacks, said on Cuban TV that members of the Miami press were being paid by the federal government. The Herald claims they had made Freedom of Information Act requests, that yielded the “smoking gun” from OCB about two weeks before the article was published. You do the math.

In an effort to discredit distinguished Cuban-American journalists, Oscar Corral and his superiors managed to: show themselves to be incompetent, besmirch the reputation of the Voice of America (whose stringers are among the most persecuted journalists in the most dangerous parts of the world), and manage to alienate a large portion of its declining readership by becoming a tool of the most despicable regime in the hemisphere. The good news is that we found the witches. They weren’t the ones we thought they were, but we found them.

Bravo!

[Cuban]

Cuban-Americans will decide if they will continue to support a liberal paper truffled with rabidly anti-Cuban columnists and reporters.

Frankly, no future for a liberal "east-coastish" paper staffed with Anglo and Jew reporters that don't know Spanish.

I'm just pointing to reality and demographics.

[Cuban]

Menendez

You might have prospects of glory in Los Angeles, but in Miami your professional career is as doomed as the Herald.

[Max Azemard]

Very Well Stated Ana, The news just like the truth should come to the reader unmolested by any personal biases or entity that may sway its meaning or the tone that it is written. Once you invert any part of the truth (news) it is not longer the truth it becomes a lie. We are living in a world where a country must do what it must to survive and protect its citizens, maybe that’s what we were doing! But does it makes us any different than them, maybe we are truly hypocrites like Ana said and we are not willing to take our own dose of medicine or maybe it’s our new version of democracy.