Proposals for the Cuban Press

Proposals for the Cuban Press / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on October 23, 2015

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 21 October 2015 — In the last half century
the Cuban media could be categorized as private monopoly in the hands of
the only permitted Party. However, in the inevitable process of
transition to democracy, it is essential to modify this situation. The
first step should undoubtedly be to diversify the forms of ownership of
these informative spaces to ensure quality and plurality.

The presumed arrival of several international media seeking to install
themselves in the country could help to raise the quality of journalism
and develop new approaches. However, it will have to be done
appropriately so as not to strangle the incipient national independent
press, which confronts serious material disabilities in the face of the
current monopoly situation and the great consortiums arriving in the
country.

The best solution for a scenario of this nature would be, along with
freedom of the press, the creation of (non-state) public media that
would combine a cooperative structure with state subsidies and an
eligible and renewable management team. "Everyone's" information
channels should not be subject to the contents of one's purse, nor the
editorial conspiracies of journalists with any type of power, be it
political or economic.

The renewal of political life in the country will also require the
presence of all ideological viewpoints in the media. However, none
should be tied to the financial resources of the political groups. So to
achieve an equality of opportunities there will have to be laws in this
regard.

The evolution of democracy in Cuba will determine what is most
desirable, but it should seize the relative advantage presented by
starting from scratch. This involves learning from the experiences of
others, and opening a public debate to facilitate finding the best
approaches and formulas for future Cuban press.

The parliament, representative and plural, should have its own channel,
although it would threaten to be very boring, but it would have the
obligation to transmit the debates, publish the laws and clarify the
doubts of the population. Hours of interminable discussion to change a
comma or a phrase in a law would fill the broadcasts.

There will also need to be a space – television, digital or printed –
for the dissemination of cultural values, without elitism or favor.
Faces linked to the party in power should not get the most on-air time,
nor should those who can pay for the spaces, but rather those who have
more value and shine in our country. Something like this will put a
definitive end to the shameful blacklists that have censored in the
media emigrant artists, "deserting" athletes, scientists critical of the
government and citizens who don't embrace the ideology in power.

If these commitments are met in the public media, the private can
compete on quality and diversity, under the premise of the greatest
possible freedom of expression. However, these alone are just the
foundation of the complex edifice of a free press, which in their own
way will have to emerge from its own cracks and adjust to the
earthshaking movements of reality. Citizens will cease to be passive
receptors of what they see, hear or read, consuming at will information
"a la carte."

It will then be the job of journalists to offer a professional and
attractive product, one that manages to compete in the market for
information without kneeling before power nor appealing to exaggeration
as a strategy.

Source: Proposals for the Cuban Press / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/proposals-for-the-cuban-press-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/