"Cuba Countdown"

The American Journalism Review offers an inside look at the scramble to provide coverage for the story in Cuba when the news broke of castro's illness and transfer of power, as well as an overview of the historical relationship between the press and castro's Cuba.

An excerpt detailing the Miami Herald's reaction:

The first week after Castro handed power to his brother, a good chunk of the Miami Herald newsroom staff was dedicated to the story. "This is definitely the top story to the Miami Herald," says Juan Tamayo, the paper's chief of correspondents.

The Herald sent in staffers without visas, something the paper hasn't hesitated to do in the past on stories it felt it needed to cover – which means lots of stories for a paper based in an area that is home to more than 1 million Cubans, living a mere 90 miles from their homeland.

The strategy has been generally successful, at least in terms of getting people onto the island. "We've gotten in, I would say, probably most of the people that we sent, a very high percentage that we sent," Tamayo says, "but I think that we all understand that sending people in sort of under the radar is a limited reporting possibility. If you have to be continually worried about ducking the state security apparatus, it's very difficult." This time, one Herald reporter was stopped at the Havana airport and sent back to Panama.

Relations between the Cuban government and the Herald – and particularly its sister paper, El Nuevo Herald – have long been touchier than those of any other news outlet in the country. The paper has been granted visas; Tamayo says he's been to Cuba legally 20 to 30 times himself. A columnist traveled on a visa in 2004, but the last reporter was legitimately there in 2000 or 2001.

"I think the dynamics going both ways don't lend themselves to good understanding," Tamayo says. "As far as they're concerned, we're not an independent newspaper; we're just part of the Cuban mafia here. For our part, our coverage of Cuba has to be intensive and absolutely correct. We cannot afford to leave things out."

Tamayo compares covering Cuba at a distance to the old days of being a China-watcher in Hong Kong or a Kremlin-watcher in Washington. It's frustrating, he says, but also gives the Herald an advantage. "To be honest with you, people who do have visas, you know the Cubans are very tough on those visas," he says. "If you write almost anything that they do not like, they likely will not give you another visa... Unless that reporter is willing to forgo all future access to the island..they're going to be pretty careful in what they write." He cites two examples of stories the Herald broke before others on the island reported them: that the military was being mobilized after Castro ceded power, and that, in 1997, there were a string of terrorist bombings in Cuba.

Read the whole article here.

Posted by Ziva at September 26, 2006 02:05 PM

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Posted by: conductor at September 26, 2006 02:46 PM

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