Letter to David Lightman

by

From: Henry Gomez
Subject: Radio Martí
Date: September 13, 2006 6:42:32 PM EDT
To: dlightman@courant.com

Dear Mr. Lightman,

I read a quote from you in yesterday’s New York Sun and had a question about it. The quote follows.

“Another regular panelist on the VOA show, David Lightman of the Hartford Courant, also rejected any comparison with the Cuba-oriented services. “This is nothing like Radio Marti. Nobody at VOA has ever told us what to say or suggested what we should say,” he said. “My view is, I’m a professional. I should be paid for my time. … I don’t just wing it.”

I was wondering how you know what Radio Marti and TV Marti are like? I mean, are you fluent in Spanish? Have you listened to or watched these services?

Did you know that by federal statute that the Office of Cuba Broadcasting must abide by the same code of journalistic ethics as the Voice of America?

Did you know that Radio (and then TV) Marti was created for the same reason and with the same objective as VOA, namely to disseminate credible and uncensored information to peoples that would not otherwise have access to it?

Were you not aware of these things?

Or were you just talking shit out of your ass in trying to avoid being roped into a contrived controversy, about journalistic ethics and objectivity, that resulted in 3 journalists being fired?

One would think that a journalist of your caliber and experience could back up the accusations that your Radio Marti counterparts somehow don’t have the same ethical standards that you do.

Just wondering.

Henry Louis Gomez
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4 thoughts on “Letter to David Lightman”

  1. Bravo, Henry. Me preguntaba hace unos días si este “conflicto” se le planteó alguna vez a los periodistas que colaboraban en Radio Liberty. Sólo lo hacían para esa emisora? Lo dudo, pero habrá que investigar.

  3. “Another journalism ethics scholar, Edward Wasserman of Washington & Lee University, said he was not particularly troubled by the VOA payments. More serious, he said, was the alleged failure of most if not all of the Cuban-American journalists to tell their private-sector bosses about the government moonlighting.”

    Here we have another journalism scholar expert(in ethics no less) attacking the Cuban-American journalists. Evidently Mr. Wasserman doesn’t read the paper he writes for, otherwise he would have known that the Miami Herald KNEW of its employees’ moonlighting since 2002.

    Mr. Wasserman how can you “not be troubled by the VOA payments”? Would you like to fill us in on what you know about Radio/TV Marti? How in your view, are they different?

    Though you were very careful not to accuse them directly, your statement reeks of maliciounes. Please do me a favor, become fully informed before you make any more asenine statements to the press.

  4. Good work. That guy was trying to puff himself up at the expense of other journalists, impugning them without evidence and smearing them to avoid having to defend them as any journo of integrity really would.

    F Oscar Corral!

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