Social media in Cuba

source: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest

Because internet access is so severely restricted in Cuba, the use of social media has not gained as much popularity as it has in other countries.The most notable social media news actually concerns a platform itself, and not the messages or ideas spread using it. ZunZuneo existed from 2008-2012, and had about 40,000 users by the time it was shut down. Early this past April, the AP revealed that it was actually created by the US with the intention to help build support against Castro’s regime. The idea was to build a subscriber base while passing around non-controversial messages about sports, music, and weather. Then, when enough people were using the service, “operators would introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize ‘smart mobs’…or, as one USAID document put it, ‘renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society’.” ZunZuneo was paid for an run by USAID, but was abruptly discontinued when its contract ran out of money.

Because of such intense internet restriction, citizens are not active on social media. And in fact, neither is the government. Reporters–those official in the eyes of the government or independent–continue to report using more traditional outlets such as print or online newspapers (though online content can be censored). As noted in the past post, only 5% of the population can access open internet. One popular method of getting ideas around is by uploading information to flash drives or DVDs, and then distributing those in person. A few Twitter and Facebook pages have been created calling for the improvement of the country, but these are most often run from outside Cuba.

 

Citizen journalism in Cuba

Though citizen journalism is alive in Cuba, there are significantly more stories about the trials and tribulations of citizen journalists than there are stories from these journalists. Recently, citizen journalist and contributor to the Cuban Network of Community Journalists Juliet Michelena Díaz was detained after taking pictures of a police operation. Her charges were intensified after this article ran on Cubanet, explaining how a dog had been set on a man during an altercation about  debt. More police brutality occurred, and Díaz reported that cell phones of passersby were confiscated so as to avoid exposing the incident.

source: http://www.cubanet.org/noticias/tropas-elites-controlan-rinas-callejeras-con-perros/

The Broadcasing Board of Governors also issued a statement about the unjust beating and detention of citizen journalists Lesbety Guillén, Jose Manuel Guerra, Niurcy Acosta Pacheco, Juan Miguel González Manso, and Acosta Bermúdez. Guillén and Guerra were preparing a video report when they were stopped and attacked by police. The other three were beaten and arrested when trying to visit opposition leader Jorge Luis Garcia. All of these reporters are contributed to Martí Noticias, a US-based news network covering Cuba who’s content is rarely accessible on-air in Cuba. In order to spread their messages, news is generally recorded onto DVDs and then distributed in person.

Cuba’s internet is not so much censored as it is unavailable. According to this article on mashable, only 5% of the population has access to the open internet. Home connections are essentially unheard of, so people are often forced to use expensive internet cafes. And professionals can only gain access at work if approved by the government. Generally, “internet access” means access to a government-controlled Intranet made up of only approved sites.

The tools that are most popular among citizen journalists are actually non-internet tools. Information is often shared by downloading articles onto flash drives and distributing them through communities. People can also build their own antennas or use illegal dial-up connections, but there is a constant fear of discovery by authorities. Sometimes, those with internet access with share their accounts or sell access to others.

 

Response to “Restrepo”

The film we watched today in class was most definitely shocking. In his New York Times interview, Tim Hetherington describes the film as “the kind of film that hasn’t been made before”, which I find to be spot-on. I’d venture to say it has similarities to Hollywood war movies/movies made based on real-life wars, but for me, what took my breath away was that we were seeing real time footage that had simply been edited together. The series of testimonials from the soldiers and their often-speechless reactions combined with powerful shots of the reality of war was an incredible way to send a message. The images from the New York Times article are a great supplement and allowed me to process the message more slowly and with slightly less fear, but without seeing the film I don’t think I’d find them quite as heart stopping. The Vanity Fair article is great because it breaks down the action that can feel so chaotic in film– even though you know something bad is going on, the written form of the story makes everything more understandable the story beat by beat.

I generally hold the belief that overdramatized journalistic pieces tarnish the reality of whatever they’re covering. However, in this case, the war in question is in fact shocking, dramatic, etc. In the most dangerous part of the world (literally), a film that simply shows what goes on on a day-to-day basis is the best way to convey the reality of conflict, and the reality of conflict is very intense. I think “Restrepo”, though scary to watch, does an amazing job of explaining to audiences what the war was really like.

Reporting and showing death

In my opinion, reporting on death is often necessary when reporting on larger worldwide issues and events. Showing death, however, is a different story. For example, a report on the death of a solider (from any country) does not offer any more useful information by including a graphic image or a foreboding image of a coffin. Since the media industry is the primary regulator of information–including information on death–it is largely the responsibility of the media to report on such sensitive subjects with caution. Through my perusing of Cuban media sources, it seems that the topic of death doesn’t get much coverage, except specific cases in which the government is blamed for somehow causing the wrongful suffering or death of a small group or an individual (usually a political dissident). Featured material depends on the source (government sanctioned vs. independent), but generally the majority of Cuban headlines do not draw as much attention to the topic of death as many American news sources. A variety of topics pepper government media outlets, while the issue of government oppression seems to take precedence with independent sources..

Blogger Yoani Sanchez hardly ever mentions death and does not include any kind of disturbing images with her blog posts. Recently, the closest she came to reporting on death in Cuba was in a post at the end of August, in which she wrote about how her country’s government explained the introduction of dengue fever into Cuba. Obviously the disease affected many lives when an epidemic hit in 1981, and she’s not convinced its been entirely eradicated. However, instead of focusing on the lives the disease took, she focuses on how it was presented as foreign enemy by her government, how “the disease had been introduced by ‘Yankee imperialism.’” A slightly older post references “el Maleconazo“, an uprising that occurred in 1994 as a result of the continued repressive government policies that was quickly shut down (and now is rarely addressed). This post indirectly references the deaths of so many Cubans who tried to escape their country and its restrictive policies illegally. This post (by a different blogger, but provided by the same blog translator platform) goes more in depth about the deadly crossings, and how “They certainly would not have occurred if the Cuban government would provide us with legal mechanisms to travel freely abroad…”. Finally, an article published by Granma (the official communist news outlet) in September reported on the deadliness of gangrene, but it was more of a science article that explained the causes, symptoms, and treatments for the disease–quite different from the “scare articles” we’ve been seeing about Ebola in the news lately.

Meghan Dhaliwal and Tom Hundley

Two reporters from the Pulitzer Center talked to us today about their work, the center’s mission, and what it really means to be embedded with military forces. Tom Hundley started out his story describing his work covering the first Gulf War after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. At the time, he was the bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune in Jerusalem, so he went to Saudi Arabia to cover the conflict. Unfortunately, the military was really only interested in getting positive coverage in light of media critique of the previous war in Vietnam, so he opted out of embedding and took advantage of his rare Saudi visa to cover other things that were happening at the time. As Hundley put it, the country was “discombobulated because Saddam was on their doorstep”, and the influx of Americans combined with women walking around without a head covering provided him with plenty of material.

Later he spent four years covering the breakup of Serbia and Ugoslavia, and recounted what took place when he and his “group of happy camper reporters” came upon a group of newly arrived American troops. He had already become comfortable in the relatively desolate area, but these troops were hyper-aware of their situation in enemy territory/combat zone. Interestingly, he explained that not carrying a gun of his own in this situation was a form of protection. “The only way to be safe was to be unarmed,” because during this war, anybody seen carrying a weapon was considered an enemy that could be shot at.

Another instance in which personal protection came into play was during the six months he spend in Baghdad after opening a bureau there once it had been secured by the US. Armed guards were stationed outside the bureau, and he and his office manager decided that one could be kept inside that only the two of them would know about, just in case of an emergency situation.

Meghan Dhaliwal entered the conversation after David Turnely’s award winning photo from the first Gulf War was mentioned (see below). As a photojournalist, she explained how, although there was conflict surrounding the taking of this picture as an invasion of an intimate moment, subjects being photographed like this “have much bigger things to worry about.” Furthermore, Turnely had been embedded for a significant amount of time at this point and had likely mastered the goal of an embedded photojournalist: to become a fly on the wall.

source: http://www.claudiarocchini.it/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/turnley-1-Medium.jpg

Meghan got her background in journalist from Boston University, and then went to Haiti with a public health student to report on the cholera outbreak thanks to a student grant from the Pulitzer Center. Upon return, she interned at the center for three months until taking over as multimedia projects coordinator. What this really translates to is a desk job, but Meghan had been aching to get back in the field for some time when the opportunity to report in Afghanistan was presented. With only twelve days notice, she was flown to Afghanistan to work with Meg Jones from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  as the photographer for a story focusing on the effort in packing up a war. Meg is a veteran military correspondent, and her knowledge was invaluable to Meghan, who had almost know knowledge of how a military operated. Although her embedding would be very low risk, she still had to “sign her life away”, and was significantly more limited than when she had photographed in Haiti. Fortunately, her public affairs officer was as helpful as he could be– especially considering the fact that as a high-ranking captain, his constant presence with her made it hard for lower-ranking privates or specialists to relax when she was around.

source: http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/asia-afghanistan-wisconsin-national-guard-war

To add to the difficulty, photographing things that weren’t there or that were on their way out was quite challenging. Meghan had to figure out how to show what was going on without being bland, but while still doing the necessary reporting. At times, this mandated starting her day at 4 AM when the light was still good. She wanted to show what life was like, not just life in a construction site, because construction sites are generally the same around the world.

In terms of censorship, it was assumed that her PA would stop her from photographing anything off limits, but this assumption proved faulty when she was addressed by three troops who had flown from a different part of Afghanistan, just to tell her in person that a photo she took for the Sentinel was against military protocol. In her PA’s presence, she had asked four troops to remove their helmets and sunglasses for a photo, and only later was told this wasn’t allowed. “I didn’t stop myself from taking pictures,” she said.  ‘I wanted to show what was going on and how these people were living and how they were taking down the infrastructure used to fight a war for the last 13 years.”

 

Reporting on the US-Cuba embargo

source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/28/opinion/martin-cuba-policy/
translation: “70% of Cubans were born under the embargo”

The United States embargo on Cuba is known as the longest lasting financial/trade embargo of modern times. Several months ago, an article by Cuban reporter Ivan Garcia was published on martinews.com, drawing on citizen interviews to support an increasingly common opinion about the situation: the embargo is hurting far more than it’s helping. Garcia included bits of interviews from six different people of various ages and professions. The consensus is that the Cuban government has used the embargo as an excuse for its own poor functioning. Rather than forcing the government to create a better environment for its people, it seems to have provided them with a scapegoat for poor conditions and actually harms the people more than it helps.

The embargo began in 1960 in response to Cuba’s nationalization of US businesses without compensation. It was further tightened in 1993 and made permanent three years later, after Cuba shot down two US aircrafts (for the full timeline of US-Cuba relations, go here). George W. Bush overall maintained and sometimes even intensified the embargo’s restrictions, but did say he would consider easing up on certain aspects if Cuba agreed to more rights for its people — namely, freedom of speech — and broader internet access. Similarly, Obama has said he will work to bring an end to the embargo if the government demonstrates improvements in human rights and agreed to a democratic election, but this has yet to come to fruition.

Radio y Televisión Martí, the platform on which the aforementioned article was published, is a broadcasting station based out of Miami and funded by the US government that “focuses on subjects that are generally censored or slanted by the Cuban government.” Contributors include both independent journalists working in Cuba as well as reporters at the Miami headquarters (source: http://www.martinews.com/info/about_us/258.html). By working for what is in effect an American newspaper reporting on Cuba, this reporter has a certain kind of access that other Cuban reporters do not. Of course, no journalist can get a real answer from the Cuban government about its use of the embargo as an excuse for ineffectiveness; they seem to have a long history of explaining away problems as things they are in the process of working on or are simply out of their control. But the kind of firsthand remarks included in this article support the longstanding idea that the embargo really is a scapegoat.

In terms of the safety of being an independent journalist on the island, the author of this article provides an interesting, honest perspective in a piece published about a month prior. He explains that it’s dangerous in part because “the profession of spy and reporter without official authorization are almost synonymous”. Furthermore, he talks about how sources who contribute to articles “can be picked up and end up behind bars,” which is in line with what we have been discussing in class regarding source safety. However, he also offers an optimistic side, telling of how one man who spoke with a journalist was finally given a decent home for himself and his family.

In relation to our Ebola discussions…

Not related to Cuba, but this article gives a far less scary description than some others we’ve read in class about Ebola, in case anyone’s interested.