The Miami New Times published a letter I wrote their editor about an article they published two weeks ago.
I read Calvin Godfrey’s piece “Vamos a Cuba!” (February 21) with great delight. I enjoyed learning about how much trouble he went through to try to get to Cuba, in the process thumbing his nose at the U.S. government and right-wing Cuban exiles violating his constitutional rights.
Of course, as a working journalist, Godfrey is authorized under a general license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control to go to Cuba anytime he pleases for journalistic activities.
That detail, of course, would have killed the entire premise of his piece, so I can see why he omitted it.
Other than the fact that it was based on a complete fabrication, the story was great!
Henry Gomez
Miami
Henry, the free Miami New Times is a good example of the concept that you get what you pay for. It’s an absolutely shameless rag, not in a sinister and truly harmful way like the New York Times, but in a cheesy, deliberately vulgar, ANYTHING-to-get-attention way. Gotta to get folks to pick up a copy to keep the countless advertisers advertising.
And of course, the New Times crew have the hipper-than-thou disease, an obsessive compulsion to appear more cool, more flip, more irreverent than ordinary mortals. It’s both comical and sad, but they’re not going to change their tune as long as they think it’s working.
And yes, they will cynically and opportunistically use the Cuba angle every chance they get. After all, their market is South Florida, and to them it’s essentially a business matter. All other considerations are moot. That means that it’s perfectly OK to make our pain their gain. Hell, the rest of the world’s been doing it for years, so why not?
There’s actually some good people at MNT and friends of this blog. Calvin Godfrey isn’t one of them though.
I suppose there are good people in the Herald and even the NYT, but what counts is the prevailing or predominant mode, the typical net outcome. To the New Times, the whole Cuba thing is mainly there to be used for “provocative” cover stories that will get people to pick up a copy of the paper. At least that’s what their track record says to me.