July 26, 2007
Found, Herald Reporter - UPDATED
The SunPost's Rebecca Wakefield has written a piece about embattled Miami Herald reporter, Oscar Corral. The piece includes an interview with Corral. I have some thoughts the matter, from both the journalistic and Cuban-American angles. I'll limit my comments here to the Cuban elements of the story. For the journalistic angle please read Herald Watch.
Overall the article paints a picture of Corral as an idealistic young reporter who has been shunned by his own community through no fault of his own. I don't know Corral so I can't tell you whether he is idealistic but I can tell you that there are some legitimate reasons for the exile community to be angry and/or suspicious of the guy.
As I mention at Herald Watch, Corral's masterpiece was a hatchet job against his fellow journalists and fellow Miami Herald Media Company staffers. The story ended up being incomplete and wrong in so many ways that I can't catalog them here. You can read the archives of Herald Watch for that.
What is interesting is how Corral is playing the victim. Apparently he's taking a page out of the Mr. Ed Ana Menendez play book. It's the same old story about being harassed and threatened. He doesn't mention the fact that he gave the people that threatened him the forum to do so by completely ignoring what was supposed to be his own blog. Did he just realize that anonymous people tend to say outlandish and sometimes scary things on the internet?
What really makes me laugh is his characterization of the Herald as a fortress of truth. The Herald's anti-Cuban slant has been well documented and only now is the management at 1 Herald Plaza even trying to remedy to the problem which has accelerated the declines in circulation.
Something that is surprising about this "expert" on the exile community is how perceives his parents generation in comparison to other generations of Cuban immigrants. Corral says that:
One of the things that bothers some of the older hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami is that there is in fact a rich diversity of opinion among Cuban exiles and Cuban-Americans, as to how they feel about policy toward Cuba, and how they feel toward politicians their parents or grandparents endorsed.
What Corral says is partly true of course. Not everyone thinks the same way, that's absurd. But what upsets hard-liners, regardless of their age, is this constant focus by the Herald, and the Democratic party apparatchiks on the idea that the traditional exile political position is crumbling. But you need look no further than the election results every two years to see that the rumor of the demise of the intransigents has been greatly exaggerated. More than reality, the groundswell for a change of policies regarding Cuba is a case of wishful thinking. But as we have seen with other political issues, tell a lie enough times and it will become true.
Something else he says also makes me doubt his understanding of his own people:
There’s a totally different world view of Cubans who got here recently versus those who got here in the ’60s. There’s people who love to talk about how the Cubans who come here now are not trustworthy, or lazy, or money-hungry. In the end, they are just immigrants who are going through the immigrant experience and they are a lot like [the critics] were back in the ’60s. It’s just 45 years of exile, and working in this country clouds your perception of how you were, or how your parents were when they first got here. As a reporter you have to let the community know that that applies to the new Cubans as well.
First of all, this is again a huge generalization that he's making. He paints the previous waves of Cubans as not understanding and ascribes terrible accusations to them. But it doesn't take a sociologist to understand that the most recent arrivals from Cuba have never lived under a system other than the totalitarian one in Cuba. Of course Cubans who come now are different and in many ways I think their upbringing is a handicap that older Cubans didn't face because pre-castro Cuba was, from a cultural standpoint, much closer to the US than today's Cuba. I don't think this is a case of collective amnesia about what they (older Cubans) went through. On the contrary, they bore a different type of cross coming to a city that was not particularly friendly to Cubans at the time, and the city's newspaper wasn't exactly a beacon of friendship either with hateful columnists like Jack Kofoed (yes Ana Menendez is no trailblazer when it comes to attacking Cubans on the pages of the Herald).
Perhaps it's just as well that Corral has been yanked off the Cuban exile beat. Nobody missed him much when his mug could only be found on a milk carton.
UPDATE: Robert shares his thoughts at 26th Parallel.
Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at July 26, 2007 06:07 PM
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Comments
Reaparecio el cerdo #1 del Herald corral ... Vaya que bien
Posted by: Abajofidel ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 26, 2007 07:47 PM
Reaparecio el cerdo #1 del Herald corral ... Vaya que bien
Posted by: Abajofidel at July 26, 2007 07:48 PM
It's the same ol' story
everywhere he goes...
He gets slandered
li-beled
He hear words he never heard in the Bible
But he's so tired.
But he's got to keep Fidel satisfied,
satisfied..
Posted by: Tomas Estrada-Palma at July 27, 2007 01:00 AM
Interesting how Oscarito Corral does not mention that even his FATHER stopped talking to him when he created the crisis with the Cuban exile community. Married with two kids? Are they his? He looks more like a metrosexual than a "Catholic school boy."
Posted by: mrcs_Concepcion at July 27, 2007 01:54 AM
Uh, I think metrosexuals are people like David Beckham, not people who look painfully geeky and socially inadequate, but whatever.
Posted by: asombra at July 27, 2007 01:01 PM
I'm tempted to write more about this story, by the way, but it's like wading in slime. There's really little or nothing to add by now, and frankly, I'm tired.
I will, however, offer Corral some advice taken from someone "moderate" enough to include a Che-lover in an album reportedly meant to honor Cuba. That's right: Oscar, NO LLORES.
Posted by: asombra at July 27, 2007 01:12 PM
Frank Zappa's "He's so Gay," dedicated to Oscar Corral.
ENSEMBLE: (singing)
He's so gay
He's so gay
He's very very gay
He's so gay
He's so gay
And he likes to be that way
With his keys all on the right
He's into rubber every night
He's so gay
He's so gay
He's ALMOST EVERYONE TODAY
He's okay
He's okay
He's got a role he wants to play
He's okay
He's okay
He's just a cowboy for a day
Of course, his evening's not complete
Without some meat in the seat;
Let's skate away
Down Santa Monica today
Maybe he wants a little spanking
Maybe he'll eat a little chain
Maybe his lover should be thanking him
For the way he makes it sprinkle
Into drops of GOLDEN RAIN
He's so gay
He's so gay
He rules the city in a way
You could say
You could say
It's sorta different today
All the taffeta and chintz
And every Leather Boy's a PRINCE
Hey hey hey!
Please don't look the other way
You could be just like him
TOMORROW!
Maybe you'll get a chance
To borrow
(Borrow)
His bouquet
And maybe later...MAYBE LATER
We'll ALL BE
GAY-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y!
DO YOU REALLY WANNA HURT ME?
Posted by: mrcs_Concepcion at July 28, 2007 12:16 AM
I think I am as anti-Castro as they come. I participated in the candlelight vigil a couple of weeks back at Versailles and I try to read this blog every day, although I rarely post. But sometimes I am driven to post to counter what some people may see as their confirmation of how "neanderthal" the cuban exile is or can be. For instance, in the year 2007, is it still acceptable to attempt to insult someone by calling them "gay?" I mean, why stop there? Or is that epithat still the last refuge of scoundrels? I Don't mean to insult anybody, just trying to let others know that we are not all troglodyte gay-hating reactionaries. By and large, I think it is better to refute people's arguments and statements than to engage in name-calling. Are we behaving any better than the Castro regime calling us the Miami "mafia?" Otherwise, I love this blog!
Posted by: Mic O'Jones at July 29, 2007 01:45 AM
Mr. so-called O'Jones: You are a hypocrite if you think that calling Oscar Corral gay is an insult or reactionary. The Zappa song was merely a call for Oscarito, the cub reporter, to come out of the closet to the tune of Zappa's song.
Posted by: mrcs_Concepcion at July 29, 2007 02:45 AM
mrs_concepcion my "handle" on here is simply a play on words that I also have on a T-shirt, nothing more. Henry has all of my personal information - I have no need to hide anything. My question to you is why do you need him to "come out of the closet" for you? Do you need others to tell you they are straight? Do you expect everyone to tell you whether they are right-handed or left-handed? Maybe you are curious as to whether they are Catholic or Jewish? The question seems to be why are you so interested in his sexual orientation? Since you have a problem with the man (as do I personally), I can only ascertain that you were seeking to "diminish" him by "branding" him a homosexual. Otherwise, what was the point of the post? I think we are better served by attacking the man's statements, not who he chooses to sleep with or what we consider to be his sexual orientation. Name calling is simply not an effective tool in achieving victory in an argument. Anyway, if no harm was meant, then no foul ocurred. Peace :)
Posted by: Mic O'Jones at July 29, 2007 02:46 PM
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