Some 72% of the magazine’s content distributed by the Club comes from RT, Sputnik and Prensa Latina to promote “freedom of expression and journalistic rigor”
14ymedio, Mexico City, December 7, 2025 — From Mexico, with public resources, the narratives of the regimes of Russia and Cuba are being disseminated. According to a report published this Sunday by Factchequeado, a US fact-checking institution, the Journalists’ Club, a Mexican non-profit organization that claims to promote “journalistic excellence since 1952,” acts as “a propaganda facade” for both governments.
The Club uses a magazine called Journalist Voices, its “news organ,” to republish information from official agencies in Russia and Cuba. According to the research, since April 2025, almost three-quarters of its content (72%) is taken from state media, mainly from the Russian RT and Sputnik (53%), followed by the Cuban agency Prensa Latina (18.6%).
Although the Journalists’ Club claims to promote “freedom of expression and journalistic rigor,” it is now “a pro-Kremlin and anti-Western propaganda conduit,” according to an analysis by the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the non-partisan German Marshall Fund. The author of the report added that the page “amplifies the narratives of the Russian and Cuban regimes while publicly presenting itself as a genuine national journalistic project.”
The page “amplifies the narratives of the regimes in Russia and Cuba while publicly presenting itself as a journalistic project”
The Journalists’ Club shows a clear inclination in favor of the present and past government in Mexico, and it’s no wonder. It benefited financially under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an open sympathizer with the Cuban regime. From 2020 to 2023, it received 951,000 pesos (about $ 51,000), for advertising in the magazine that it “publishes,” although it is not known where you can get a physical copy, and despite the fact that its Facebook page has only 2,600 followers.
The Club is run by Celeste Sáenz de Miera and Mouris Salloum George, the editor responsible for the publication. Just last April, he was recognized by the Government of Vietnam “for his work in spreading the values and the resilient spirit of the Vietnamese people.”
Previously, in 2019, at the headquarters of the Journalists’ Club, five blocks from the Palacio Nacional, the seat of the Mexican government in Mexico City, Salloum George led a ceremony for the 60th anniversary of Prensa Latina. At the event, the then director of the agency, Luis Enrique González, stated that his “mission” to “counter the campaigns of disinformation and manipulation about the Cuban revolution” was still “in effect.”
Salloum George led a ceremony for the 60th anniversary of Prensa Latina
As for Celeste Sáenz de Miera, in 2017 she headed an event in which a prize was given to the RT channel for its “contribution to the plurality of information.” In her message, the journalist, who says publicly that “the deliberate violence of lies” must be denounced and that her organization defends “truth as an ethical obligation and backbone of journalism,” pointed out that the role played by the Russian channel on the international scene “is fundamental, since it contributes in a decisive way to the plurality of information with unquestionable quality and rigor.”
In 2023, at an event where she presented a prize addressed to the Russian propaganda media Tsargrad for its coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, Sáenz de Miera even told the Russian ambassador to Mexico, Viktor Koronelli — who that same year was sent to Cuba to occupy the same post — that the Journalists’ Club was “the Mexican home” for diplomats from Russia. The envoy from Moscow, who was in charge of receiving the recognition, stated that “we have other media in Russia, and I believe that in subsequent years all of them will be given these types of awards.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.