Director of Cuba’s Communist Party Newspaper Fired for his “Errors”

Prior to ‘Granma’, Terry Cuervo directed the newspaper ‘Juventud Rebelde’, the second most important in the country. (@pelayoterry)

14ymedio biggerThe director of Granma newspaper, Pelayo Terry Cuervo, was “liberated” from his post by the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), due to “errors committed in the fulfillment of his responsibilities,” a brief note published on Thursday on Granma’s website announced.

“Until the new director is appointed, the current deputy director Oscar Sánchez Serra will assumes these functions,” explains the announcement, which does not add details about the faults committed by the previous holder of the position.

The note also does not provide information on the future functions that the dismissed official will have, a sign that his departure has been on bad terms. The use of the word “liberated” to announce the firing is also a sign that the journalist did not leave in good standing.

Terry Cuervo, with a Bachelor of Journalism earned in 1988, had been appointed head of the Granma newspaper in October 2013, when he was described as having “an upward trajectory as a journalist, war correspondent in Ethiopia” and having occupied “different managerial positions in organs of the written press.”

Prior to Granma, Terry Cuervo directed the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), the second most important in the country, which is also controlled by the Revolutionary Guidance Department of the Central Committee of the PCC.

The former director was seen among his colleagues as a discreet man, far removed from the harsh public positions of his predecessor, the journalist Lázaro Barredo, who combined his work as head of the main official media with his presentations in the program La Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable).

Terry Cuervo was interested from his first days at the head of Granma in updating its approach and promoting the use of the internet and social networks. He came to manage a blog under the name of CiberEditor.

In April of this year, the Revolutionary Armed Forces handed Terry Cuerdo, along with other cultural personalities, a replica of the Mambi Machete belonging to Generalísimo Máximo Gómez.

His most recent public appearance was during the visit to the Granma newsroom of a delegation of editors from the newspaper Nhan Dan, official organ of the Vietnamese communists.

In an interview with the BBC, the journalist confessed that “Granma still fails today, as a newspaper, to get even closer to the reality of the country,” and he believed that he had not yet succeeded… but didn’t believe that he wasn’t trying.” He also noted that there were critical voices within the newspaper, which included himself, and that “they were trying to improve it.”

The new director, Oscar Sánchez Serra, has excelled in sports journalism and coverage of several baseball events in which the Cuban team has participated. He has also published numerous journalistic works of historical importance, aligned with the official line of the PCC.

In an interview at the end of last year, Sánchez Serra said that the responsibility of the Granma newspaper was “the most sought after, the most criticized, and the national and international touchstone constitutes a high responsibility.”