For Roberto Peralo:
Traditional media have had to modify their budgets with the advent of blogs. Now any citizen, from a blog and more recently from Twitter, can offer primary news in real time and the traditional newspapers must refer to the primary source of such news. Blogs have given a voice to people who never wrote or dreamed of writing in a paper newspaper. They serve to denounce the lack of guarantees for journalists after the coup d’etat in Honduras, and serve to expose the lie that the unofficial bloggers are paid by the Empire.
The possibility of having a voice on the Internet allows the presentation of information on any country, any phenomenon. Before what was known about Cuba was what was published in the Cuban press or in some dispatch from a foreign correspondent. Now, in any latitude, open you PC and you have access to formal and informal information; for and against. Your education and abilities depend on how you interpret this avalanche of information, and our ethics, what use you put it to.
Calling anyone who wants change in Cuba an annexationist — meaning they want Cuba annexed to the United States — has been a tactic designed to alienate popular sympathy toward anyone who thinks differently, though it’s possible that there is a party or a annexationist current that I don’t know about, but I know the term is used in reference to people who have nothing to do with annexationists.
The quote from Political Affairs of 1981 is outdated, at that time the profound impact that having access to information through the still new internet was not envisioned, much less the existence of social networks. And one thing was true then and is true now. Read, find and inform yourself about what is of interest that happens around you. A lot of people, including nationals, pass on newspapers to look at bulletin boards or sports.
One example is a man named Miles. The ABC’s of serious journalist require you to verify information that doesn’t come from a reliable source, and even in the latter case, if it is very sensitive information, you should try to verify by all means. That is a discredit to the source and very serious for a journalist.
It’s a stereotypical journalism burden from one side or the other. I invite you to discover the stereotypes of the national press.
I could subscribe to the last paragraph of the work, I would like to write for Cubans without the disgust of seeing myself demonized for my opinions. And I will end with a joke. In reference to a book published by Duke University, it talked about the four media that influence the thinking of Americans. In Cuba it has been simplified and there is only one.
March 27 2011
Translator’s note: La Joven Cuba is a website of students at the University of Matanzas and Regina has begun to engage them in conversation through their forum. She also posts her comments there, here.
