The Miami Herald reported that El Nuevo Herald’s Freelancer Olga Connor was working for Radio Marti, making $440 per show. Problem is they REPORTED THIS IN 2002!
Wow, looks like Oscar Corral’s scoop isn’t much of a scoop at all! Perhaps the people at Herald don’t read their own paper. Embarrassing.
Didn’t occur to anyone at the Herald that this was a violation of journalistic ethics back in 2002? I guess it wasn’t an issue because castroite mouthpieces weren’t agitating about it back then. But according to The Real Cuba:
About three weeks ago, Reinaldo Taladrid, one of the “panelists” in the program Mesa Redonda (Round Table) on Cuban TV, began making allegations about journalists in Miami who were getting paid by Radio Marti.
I remember watching A Mano Limpia on Channel 41 and they were showing excerpts of that particular broadcast of Mesa Redonda.
So it seems that Oscar Corral and The Miami Herald are taking their cues from the real propagandists.
A big hat tip to The Real Cuba.
It is not correct to say, as it has been alleged elsewhere that El Nuevo Herald has “silenced” its journalists. They can still write and speak their opinions, just not for El Nuevo Herald. (Although I doubt any MSM outlet would hire them anytime soon.) What the Herald knew and when did they know it may be worth quibbling about, but the fact remains that these journalists did wrong by placing themselves on the government’s payroll.
Not to overly defend the Herald — which in interest of full disclosure is owned by the same company that owns the paper I work for — but I think the criticisms of the original story and the decision to fire its journalists have been overblown. They did what they had to do to protect the paper’s credibility as an independent provider of news and opinion.
Some have defended the journalists, and by extension the American government’s practice of paying them, as being justified because of the rightness of the cause. But what if these journalists were being paid by a Democratic administration while at the same time writing pro-Castro or pro-Chavez columns and editorials? Would you not object to this as a waste of taxpayer dollars or even as a violation of journalistic ethics?
Finally, is paying journalists who have day jobs elsewhere the best use of government money?
Marc, read the story in this article
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y02/apr02/01e3.htm
Tell me they they had to “protect the paper’s credibility as an independent provider of news” today and explain why they didn’t do it 4 years ago. I guess the Herald was unethical back then and it’s ethical now. LMAO
And it looks lousy for the Herald that they are trying to discredit non-employees of theirs that are anti-castro while the situation in Cuba is in a state of flux.
Marc,
The suspicious timing is more than a quibble; it smells to high heaven. If these are such obvious violations of “journalistic ethics”, why would the
exact same act four years ago not raise one eyebrow at The Herald? Do the MSM’s professional ethics evolve faster than bacteria in a petri dish? Or is it that “journalistic ethics” is an oxymoron? This was sometime a paradox, but now The Times gives it proof. It is difficult to not conclude the MSM is run by proud graduates of the Jayson Blair School for Situational Ethics.
I don’t know why the Herald didn’t do anything four years ago. They probabaly should have. I also think the recent story should have noted the Cuban government’s recent complaint on the roundtable show about Cuban-American journalists receiving U.S. government payments. Or if there was another reason for doing the FOIA request now, it should have been noted. If Editor and Publisher or some other journalism magazine does a story on this, those are questions they should ask.
I do think the timing of the revelations is unfortunate, considering all that is happening in Cuba now. However, to automatically presume a conspiracy or a vendetta on the part of the Herald when there is no other evidence of such, is at best premature, and at worst, reckless.
Whatever the timing, it doesn’t change the fact that these journalists were wrong for accepting the government payments. None of the circumstances some have mentioned here changes that.
(Full disclosure, again: The company that owns the Heralds also owns the paper I work for.)
I have just one question — since when are American journallists required to provide “unbiased” reporting (another words be a propaganda mouthpiece) for a communist regime that also happens to be an enemy of the U.S.? Just wondering.
YEAH!!!!!! The Miami Herald has BIG CREDIBILITY issues!!!!!!!
It has been ALLEDGED that the Miami Herald doesn’t consider unethical to have some of its writers contribute articles to magazines in Communist Cuba such as “Juventud Rebelde” and Minrex. Cuba is a TOTALITARIAN state where EVERYTHING is controlled by the Cuban government.
http://www.cubaminrex.cu/CDH/60cdh/Guantanamo/English/International%20Denounces.htm
“Guantánamo has become the gulag of our time” allegedly written By Max Castro.
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/2004/enero-marzo/mar-27/sumarios/sumi_opinion.html
Juventud Rebelde
Wednesday March 24, 2004
Miami: A City on the Edge – allegedly written by Max Castro
I understand Mr. Castro is no longer in the employ of the Miami Herald. Max Lesnik, in http://la_pedrada.blogia.com/2003/122403-the-miami-herald-censura-en-secreto.php
has an article on Mr. Max Castro’s dismissal by the Herald. He also quotes the email in which the Herald notified Mr. Max Castro. The message was translated to Spanish.
“Dice así el mensaje: «Hemos decidido descontinuar su columna a partir del 30 de diciembre. Hubiera querido darle la noticia personalmente, razón por la cual he tratado de contactarlo.
Ud. ha sido parte de esta página por varios años, muchos más que la mayoría de los otros columnistas. Pero ya es tiempo de cambiar. Yo sé que Ud. no estará contento con esta decisión pero yo le he pensado considerablemente y estoy listo para tomar esta medida. Firmado: Joe Oglesby”
Mr. Max Castro, a castro apologist, was not terminated because of his alleged unethical behavior, nor was there a FIRST PAGE editorial to inform the COMMUNITY at large of what had transpired during Mr. Castro’s employment at the Herald.
Max Castro is/was a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s North-South Center. He is/was also a regular columnist for The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald (Miami), and La Opinión (Los Angeles).
Mr. Max Castro did an interview with WPBT (Frontline) during the Elian Gonzalez saga.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/elian/interviews/castro.html
I wonder if Mr. Castro got paid for his “unbiased opinion.”
As far as I know, PBS is government funded and Oscar was on “Talk of the Nation” 8/15/06, and “All Things Considered” 5//17/05. The latter was about the Posada case. BTW, as editor, is he responsible for the comments on his blog?
Marc, piensa mal, y asertaras.”
Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees….
I think it’s time to step away from the issue of the Miami Herald and its contempt for the Cuban exile community, and look for the real reason behind the front page article of Sept. 8, 2006. Who has the most to gain by it? The Miami Herald? I don’t think so! Does the Miami Herald REALLY consider the alleged unethical behavior of these Cuban-American journalists to be the REAL issue here? No again! If that were the case, it would have been front page news back in March 31, 2002 when it was first reported by Elaine De Valle. It would be foolish to believe that the editors of The Miami Herald were ignorant of this article. I can only surmise that (at that time) it was not considered to be “a conflict of interest.” What made it so? Why wait 4 years, 5 months, and 8 days to publish this information? Who is actually behind all this? Could the Cuban government in Havana and The Miami Herald be working in tandem in order to dig up dirt on the Cuban exile community as a “means to an end?” What SPECIAL INTERESTS” are involved?
By now we should all be familiar with the tactics used by the left and its “drive by media” when they want to defame political leaders, groups or individuals. I believe that special interests in both the United States and Cuba have pressing concerns that need to be dealt with, ergo the Cuban exile community LEADERSHIP and TV/Radio Marti.
Let’s rewind back to the year 2000 when little Elian Gonzalez became the pawn of American BIG business interests in pursuit of $$$$$.
Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…
Elian Gonzalez’s story is one we Cuban-Americans know too well, but there are still many among us that don’t know about the involvement of Archer Daniels Midland and American BIG business. With their DEEP pockets and their MSM contacts they are indirectly responsible for launching a furious campaign to discredit the Cuban-American community (and prompted the Clinton administration and Janet Reno to overlook the RULE OF LAW and return Elian to Cuba.) At the risk of repeating myself… Aqui lo que importa es el CASH!!!
http://www.nocastro.com/archives/elian77.htm
The point I’m trying to make (in a roundabout way) is quite simple… I’m willing to make a bet that Mr. Dwayne Andreas is just salivating at the mouth for JUST ANOTHER GO AT IT. American BIG business and Cuba would like nothing more than the Chinese model for Cuba. Cuban-Americans and Cuban opposition leaders, on the other hand, would like nothing more than a FREE democratic Cuba.
The current state of fidel castro’s health and (God willing) his soon demise has prompted what I foresee as the beginning of another furious campaign to discredit the Cuban exile community, most specifically, those in position of power.
By stripping these leaders of their CREDIBILITY (they believe) it will also strip them of their power within the community and internationally. These people will stop at NOTHING to get what they want. We need to look very closely why Ramiro Valdéz was “brought” back into the castro “family” fold… Recently, Mr. Valdéz signed an agreement with Communist China to produce electrical equipment and computer components in Cuba. The same components that China signed an agreement with western companies to produce…You guess it! NOW IT WILL BE CHEAPER to manufacture and only 90 miles away. Who laughs all the way to the bank? Western companies and the Chinese! Cuba and Cubans will be royally *#@*&* once again.
Something even more important is taking place in Cuba. They are clearing all the sugarcane land (abandoned for many years now) to begin growing large amounts of sugarcane… Sorry, not for human consumption but for ETHANOL. I wonder what ADM has to say about this!
Food for thought…..
It’s unbelievable how shameless the Miami Herald and it’s mainstream media cohorts are. They create a mountain out of a mole hill, a deck of cards, a strawman, a lame story without any substance. And the horrible thing about this is that the New York Times like a hungry vulture on the lookout for carrion [read this as anything that will slander Cuban exiles] INSTANTLY SWOOPS DOWN and publishes this BS story. Yes, the same NYT’s [that beckon of journalistic integrity] that wanted Cuban exile Prof. Carlos Eire of Yale to attack his own people for celebrating Castro’s illness and decided not to publish “his” opinion piece when when it wasn’t anti-exile!
Look at LA BAJESA [the lowness] of the NYTs. I’m printing the last paragaraph in an article that they published today on this “scandal”
September 9, 2006
Journalists Fired for Taking Gov’t Money
“But he added that newspapers are responsible for ensuring that everyone in the newsroom understands their ethical standards.
The Cuban government has long accused the United States of paying South Florida journalists to promote anti-government propaganda.
In an interview broadcast at a Hispanic media convention in June, the head of Cuba’s parliament denied that more than two dozen journalists had been imprisoned in his own country for speaking out against the Communist government, saying they were not independent journalists but U.S. agents.”
In other words, question the integrity of these Cuban American journalists in order to cast a doubt over the authenticity of Cuba’s imprisoned independent journalists!
There are no words to describe the MSM other than evil.
I agree with the majority here that this smells to high heaven and we already know that the herald hates Cuban Exiles. This should not surprise anyone.
However, it looks to me that it is the same playbook from La Habana to send us into a tizzy about what is really minor compared to what should be our only focus…the imminent death of castro and the certain chaos that will arise within Cuba.
While I agree that the herald’s actions should be questioned and the journalists may/or may not be guilty of bad judgement. I don’t give a damn about this compared to what’s going on inside of Cuba.
These commies are famous for propaganda and for instilling dissent within this community… they have been doing it for years! Let the herald do what it has always done and lets keep asking about the journalists within Cuba. We should not lose our focus, especially now.