“There are too many negative stories.”

by

Via Child of the Revolution, former Havana correspondent for the Chicago Tribune Gary Marx talks to The Nation over his expulsion from the island:

That was then. Two months ago, Marx was called into the Cuban International Press Center (CPI) and told his five-year stint as a correspondent in Cuba had come to an end. “The bottom line was basically this,” Marx told me. “[CPI director José Luis Ponce] said to me, ‘This is nothing personal, this is business. Our overseas image is very important to us. We weighed your positive stories against your negative stories. There are too many negative stories. We think we can do better with someone else.'”

Read the whole excellent thing right here.

7 thoughts on ““There are too many negative stories.””

  1. – “This is nothing personal, this is business.”

    This regime is nothing more than ‘MAFIA INC.’. It’s not about ‘robolution’, it’s not about socialism/communism, it’s not about the ‘poor’, it’s not even about ‘El Comapingandante’ anymore. It’s all about their fear of losing CONTROL and the potential resulting bloodbath that could occurr with them on the very short end of the stick!

    –

  3. . . . which brings us to the point of how news outlets like the AP have been able to remain in Cuba for so long. By not telling the entire story. At least Marx gave it a shot. One of his quotes from the end of the story pretty much sums up the reason Fifo is still kicking:
    “there is a tremendous amount of fear her

    -Anatasio

  4. This is off-topic. But SI.com is speculating that Anthony Gonzalez, an outstanding Cuban-American wide receiver for Ohio State, might just sneak into the first round of the draft. If so, I believe that would make him the first Cuban-American ever selected in the first round of the NFL draft.

    Again, pardon the non-sequitur. But I thought this might be worth a mention.

  5. There are “negative” stories (at least a few) because the situation in Cuba is SO bad that even the MSM can’t completely ignore that, as much as they might want to. So what does the regime do about it? Try to improve the situation in any way? OF COURSE NOT. Just get rid of the “problematic” reporters and put in new ones who’ll know, from day one, that it’s either the regime’s way or the highway.

    The real scandal here, obviously, is not what the regime is doing, which is perfectly typical and predictable, but that the MSM will continue to play along to keep their precious little Havana bureaus in operation. As if bland, soft, emasculated “news” stories were worth anything at all.

  6. Asombra,

    That’s what has made no freakin’ sense to me. Why keep a bureau in Havana, if you can’t report real news from there?

  7. Reporting real news from Cuba is clearly not the point of these domesticated and housebroken bureaus, since doing so would mean no bureau. No serious, honorable, self-respecting news outfit should ever consent to such interference and censorhip. Yet they do. Maybe a Havana bureau is just an image or status thing, meaningless though it may be, or maybe there’s an element of collusion with and/or sympathy for the regime and what it stands for. Regardless, it’s a pitiful, disgusting trade-off: “news” acceptable to the regime in exchange for the damn bureau.

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