Last week we promoted a clip that ran on ABC’s 20/20 about Cuban health care as portrayed by Michael Moore. The piece had more truth about the real Cuban health care system in 4 or 5 minutes than has ever been said in the mainstream broadcast media in 48 years. Well Stossel recaps the clip and plugs the upcoming special on American health care that will run this Friday night in his weekly email.
Last week’s piece featuring Cuba’s health care system caused quite a reaction. It was just a small snippet to introduce my special “Whose Body Is It, Anyway? Sick in America,” which will air this Friday at 10 p.m. EDT. I’ll send another e-mail Thursday with more about that.
The Cuban government reacted swiftly. The Central Committee met to discuss the “case” and then called members of the ABC Cuban bureau in for questioning. That’s all I have until the ABC foreign desk tells us more…
Memo to ABC: This is how the Cuban government reacts to independent evaluations of its operations. They will intimidate and threaten you. They will threaten to expel your journalists and close your Cuba bureau. They will tell you that you will be on the outside looking in when the big story happens (fidels funeral).
Don’t be fooled. Your Havana bureau is insignificant in comparison to the story that you are beginning to break for the first time in the major US media: the truth about castro’s Cuba. If the regime closes your bureau in Havana you should be proud. Then you can report on that and how the regime has expelled other reporters who it found to be authoring “inconvenient” stories like Gary Marx of the Chicago Tribune and Stephen Gibbs of the BBC. But you will still be able to report on Cuba. You can send in journalists posing as tourists as some other media outlets have done.
fidel’s funeral will be a scripted affair with complete Cuban government control anyway. You can simply rebroadcast Cuba’s own feed of the events surrounding it. It would be the same thing. It’s not worth continuing to trade your integrity for it.
Your colleagues at NBC news recently went to Cuba to broadcast the Today show. During two hours we heard from Cuban government officals, saw Cuban dancers and musicians and attacks on US policy. We did not see the picture of or even hear the name of a single political prisoner or dissident on the island. We heard Matt Lauer utter 12 sentences in two hours that could be considered critical of the regime.
As I said earlier, ABC has an opportunity to report a story that has been 48 years in the making and that unfortunately none of your big media colleagues is reporting. Be bold and get that story. Don’t allow the Cuban government to treat you in ways that would never accept from the US government or any other government for that matter.
There are 11 million people in Cuba waiting for their story to be told. Are you brave enough to tell it?
UPDATE: The Stossel quote at the top of this post came from a page where he posts his latest weekly email. If you’ll notice in the quotation that I posted that he says he’s going to send out another email on Thursday (that’s today). So what you’ll see now if you click the link is latest email he sent out, overwriting the previous one.
Bravo, Henry!
Excellent Henry, I trust you sent it to Stossel and to ABC’s top management!
great job tocayo
Henry, well put. You should actually send that to ABC directly.
Excellent Henry,
I think we should all drown ABC & Stossel with e-mail (ego stoking), first congratulating them for taking something on that most have shied away from, proving they have the largest coj… in the industry and how beneficial it would be for them if they took the whole industry by surprise and caused some SHOCK & AWE of their own, by revealing all the other truths about Cuba. This including, how blacks are treated, Dissidents, Cubans vs. tourists, private property, etc.
Dare them with the praise of this lastest healthcare report, to report other Cuban truths.
Wait, am I dreaming??
Lori,
Perhaps you [we] are not dreaming, but awakening to a new dawn. Lets wait and see.
Amen brother!!!
I hope I’m wrong, but it the story (about Cuba’s healthcare) does come out It’ll be so whitewashed you won’t even recognize what country Stossel is talking about.
ABC needs to keep that bureau in Cuba… No matter what.
Firefly, I agree with you…hoping that you’re wrong that is, as well as, on the need for ABC’s Havana bureau to remain on the island. We have for far too long, become accustomed to expect the whitewashed nonsense emanating from what George Moneo has correctly classified as “Stenography Service(s),” pretending to be News Media Services, however, we cannot ever lose hope, not just for our sake, but most importantly for the sake of our oppressed brothers and sisters in Cuba. I hope you don’t get me wrong, for I know exactly where your feelings come from, but let’s not “rain on the parade” before the facts come to pass, especially not now that the Cuba “issue” is so close to being resolved. Shalom!!!
Bro Henry, I just heard you’re a dad. I know I’m late dude, but Congratulations, hermano. better late than never.
Now to this, awesome post, ABC would be doing a great justice by decrying everything that comes from the regime…thanks to Stossel. I believe no matter how many times Moore wants to speak about Canada and such, he should hit again and again with the Cuba question, until Moore begins crying like a big fat baby and admits that Cuba ain’t that great.
kudos for the challenge