Traducción: Jesús Bran

This article is part of the series Communication and Media Policy

With this series dedicated to Communication and Media Policy, journal Temas’ blog Catalejo suggests for discussion a number of problems about the existing media model and other general social communication-related issues. The series focuses on several topics of interest not only to professional journalists but also to a political agenda drawn up since January 2012 and offered for public debate in the last few years. These topics are as follows: 

Is there a universally accepted model of communication policy or do the different countries or regions have their own? Could one of those models be more suitable, useful or viable to Cuba?

How can Cuba’s true public sphere be characterized regarding the access to information, the media, and freedom of speech? Which practices are—or not—progressive? How to distinguish public from state media in Cuba? And from the non-state media? What requirements must a communication system meet under a new socialism?

To what extent do the regulations currently in force respond to the needs of that new communication system? What are its achievements and shortcomings? What are the benefits and costs of postponing the discussion of these issues until the 2023-2028 legislative calendar through a Communications Act? What concepts and practices should anticipate the said Act and start to change our political culture of communication?

The Social Communication Policy of the Cuban State and Government is one of the most important achievements in the history of the revolutionary process regarding the right of the citizens to information and communication. It is intended to meet several decades-old claims made by journalists, communicators and information scientists. However, that’s not good enough. It’s becoming increasingly necessary to enforce it completely and supplement it with a law that governs communication between the media and the institutions. It’s essential to declare the rights and duties of public officials in matters of information and their relations with the media. Likewise, we urgently need to establish the ways to use advertising and new forms of economic management in the so-called public media.

Public media or state media?

Discussion about communication policies has intensified in the last decades, mainly in the Latin American subcontinent after several progressive governments (Uruguay, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) enacted communications acts to democratize the access to, creation and use of the media in their countries. This legislative movement could be construed as a reaction to the deregulation by neoliberal governments in the 1990s that media market ownership ended up highly concentrated in private hands (Mastrini, Bizbergé and De Charras, 2012).

Even if they failed to yield the expected results, the laws passed during the years that the region benefitted from several leftist governments turned the topic into an essential focus for discussion about new democratic models, communication rights and ways to raise the profile of groups long excluded from the national narrative. Through this way of understanding the processes and according to each country’s specific context, the states assumed new responsibilities as guarantors of those communication rights. That is, they were expected to not only to protect the rights and freedom of speech of the citizens and the political and civil society in their media, but also to oversee other non-state public media in the process of distribution and production of ICT goods (Uranga, 2007). In line with this idea, Gaetán Tremblay (1988) recommends: “Public service is an activity judged to be in the public interest by society and recognized as such by the State. It cannot be left to private interests and abandoned solely to the laws of the market. Therefore, the State assumes the responsibility for its control, subjecting it to special laws if necessary”.

Unfortunately, the return of new right-wing administrations in these countries through elections or soft coups d’état—in which the great media conglomerates affected by these regulations played a key role—prevented a more profound transformation of a system that needed time and greater political will to consolidate.

Nonetheless, in our case, those experiences provided the theoretical and practical tools to improve our media system and therefore—in the words of Manuel Martín Serrano—our political system. The issue here is the immediacy or urgency of the top leadership’s response.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has provided a number of basic principles for the media to be considered a public good:

1. the scope of their services was initially defined by geographic and socioeconomic dimensions, but technological integration paved the way for the extension of public services to different screens and devices for informational and entertainment purposes;

2. editorial and financial independence not subject to frequent (e.g. annual) revisions to the detriment of their operational autonomy;

3. independence of their governing boards from the political and economic powers; diversity and plurality of contents and impartiality of their programs (“nor should the public broadcasting system promote a given position or support a certain political party”);

5. a public service mandate established by regulations;

6. accountability to the public at large and to regulatory bodies having a degree of autonomy from government;

7. production of contents governed by public interest and not by commercial standards or partisan expectations;

8. provision of absent or weak contents because they don’t fit in with the commercial or partisan logic.

For decades, the Cuban media professionals have complained in many instances about excessive external regulatory control by government institutions—mainly the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC)—over the mass media. In successive congresses of the Association of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) our professionals recognized the circumstances whereby the U.S. government keeps us under permanent siege, but pressed the point that media management has a dynamic of its own that needs more editorial autonomy in order to be effective. The late journalist and professor of several generations of communicators, Julio García Luis, gave a theoretical and referential explanation of this phenomenon and proposed an ethical and professional model distinctly marked by the aforesaid guidelines as well as by professional self-regulation together with the political and ideological guidance of the party organs.

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez’s assumption of office opened the door to a possible new approach to the topic of media management. The Social Communication Policy of the Cuban State and Government was approved and the media workers benefited from a salary increase in the budgeted sector. However, even if the upper echelons of government refer to the organizations engaged in journalistic work as public media, the truth is that they are fully subsidized by the State, and those that generate some profit are not entitled to use it to meet their own needs. Their directors are appointed by the Party or the Young Communist League (UJC) without first consulting the editorial staff or explaining their choice to the audiences. This happens in each of Cuba’s 600 plus journalistic organizations, namely the newspapers, radio and TV stations that make up the media system of the country’s 15 provinces and the Isle of Youth. I agree with José Ramón Vidal’s words: “It’s not about denying the facts or the PCC’s role, but a matter of allocating each actor a space to perform and preventing it from becoming contaminated with a one-way regulatory system” (Batista, 2013, p.89). In a way, this situation contradicts the policy approved two years ago and belies the adjective “public” to describe the Cuban state media. The discussion about its nomenclature and conceptualization is not trivial inasmuch as it could lead us to confuse different terms and concepts and thus sway public debate.

As UPEC first vice-president Dr. Rosa Miriam Elizalde rightly said in an article published on the website Cubadebate in August 2018:

“What system other than the press is present all over the nation and, by professional trade, capable of producing cultural and communicational contents for the territorial media and institutions, through both analog and digital channels? But if we compare our media with a shoe factory, we could say that today we are producing a single type of slipper for a single foot size, while we neglect the value of the commodity chain and the organization already in place.

“What’s certain is that we don’t see real signs, beyond the discourse, of a change of paradigm conducive to the desired scenario. We know that the times of politics are not the times of the citizenry and, as José Martí said, in politics, what is real is what cannot be seen. But these axioms might also turn against those of us who want the improvement of a real public media system in the country.”

Various graduate and postgraduate studies of the School of Communication of the University of Havana have contributed to enrich the Cuban debate with details of a possible indigenous public and state media management model. They include studies about the relevance of a legal statute for the national media (Batista, 2015); the analysis of certain media laws enacted in Latin American countries (Tolentino, 2016); the characteristics of strategic management and mediation by media directors (Franco, 2016) and the European public media models (Terrero, 2018). Worthy of mention is the PhD in Social Communication thesis defended by Rosa Miriam Elizalde (2014), on the principles to be considered from the perspective of the Cuban journalists with a view toward a national communication policy.

Pride and Prejudice in the Cuban Media

The public sphere is growing in complexity in terms of actors, topics and discourses which are gradually finding their way into the national debate. The development of the Internet infrastructure in the country facilitated the appearance of new means and forms of communication among a population with a high educational level and strong needs to express themselves outside the official channels.

The early years of this 21^st century saw the emergence of dozens of blogs on a wide range of topics. They are mostly administered by Cuban media professionals or others in priority sectors with network access. At the same time, private media were established abroad with the aim of presenting a different narrative from that of the state media, as in the case of Diario de Cuba, 14yMedio, Hypermedia Magazine and CiberCuba. They are all questionably funded by bodies linked to U.S. federal agencies bent on bringing about a regime change in Cuba, giving voice to Cuban dissidents who have very little impact on the public debate. Some of them spun out of publications such as Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana—eventually split into two websites (Cuba Encuentro and Diario de Cuba)—and Cubanet, both established in the 1990s, although the latter is still in operation.

More recently, especially after D17, 2014[1], some private media were created by young journalists or communicators graduated from Cuban universities who disagreed with the way that journalism worked in the country. At first, professionals still employed in state media worked together with others who were no longer in the system or even living in Cuba. Several private media — born practically from a generational demand under favorable techno-social circumstances — published a great number of texts of journalistic rigor about social subjects and groups largely ignored by the official agenda. Not all their products were high-quality, but at the time they contrasted sharply with those published in the state media, insofar as the use of narrative techniques, hypermedia tools and accuracy of data collection and selection. Besides, these young reporters started to take part in and reach out to festivals, events and counterparts from around the world. Given such openings, a number of disenchanted colleagues with no prospect of change in sight quit their state jobs and went to private media, e.g. El Estornudo, Periodismo de Barrio, El Toque, La Joven Cuba, AM:PM Magazine, Yucabyte, Postdata Club, Play Off, La Tizza and Tremenda Nota, among others. Their differences are not only noticeable in terms of journalistic purpose and political stance, but also in the way of defraying expenses for salaries, contributions, content production, etc. A detailed analysis of these issues would require a longer additional text.

The source of their funds is a very controversial aspect and the reason for the criticism leveled at them from governmental political institutions. Important Cuban political figures use this subject to attack them insofar as the agendas and political postures of some of these media organizations started to issue harsher challenges to the Revolution’s official discourse.

It’s a complicated situation because one of the aspects that public officials, media directors or journalists argue is the legal status, or lack thereof, of this kind of media. As the recently approved constitution establishes in Article 55:

“Freedom of the press is recognized. This right is exercised according to the law and for the good of society. The fundamental means of social communication, in any of their forms and supports, are the socialist property of all the people and the political, social and mass organizations, and may not be categorized as any other type of property. The State establishes the principles of organization and operation for all means of social communication”.

It’s difficult to discern in this constitutional article whether these media will get to be recognized in the future communication or media law or remain private. Still, it would be interesting to know what may happen if they apply for recognition as cooperatives somewhere along the line.

Not all private media should be deemed (for now) a threat to Cuban socialism. The goal of many of their members is to do the kind of high-quality journalistic work with topics, timeliness and ways that they never found in most of their state media employers, worn-out by a severe crisis of structure, professional culture and performance. It’s also a fact that some of those young private media journalists never cared about working in any way for a state media since they disagreed with our political system. Furthermore, it’s clear by now that the public was waiting expectantly for the new narratives proposed.

While it’s true that in general some party weeklies (Invasor, Escambray), radio stations (Radio Rebelde, Radio Sancti Spiritus, CMHW de Villa Clara) and youth magazines (El Caimán Barbudo, Alma Mater, Juventud Técnica) do good journalistic work, the quality of Cuban state journalism—in relation to number of outlets, infrastructure and human resources—is still much lower than its real potential for excellence. Of course, this list is as yet incomplete and permeated by this author’s personal view of the profession. Media ownership does not dictate their quality, but some young journalists choose to devote their time and professional competence to undertakings much more enticing than the state media’s daily agendas, which are pre-established and not in accord with their interests. Some journalists who formally quit the state sector collaborate with and freelance for several private media at the same time.

As to those of us journalists who bet on a socialist public media system, the only choice is to continue trying to be creative with the best possible journalism in our respective workplaces. For the time being, the solution is to become innovative agents among our peers and better ourselves theoretically, ethically and professionally, as well as to keep up with the best output of our colleagues around the world and not give up the pursuit of improving such a valuable public service to the Republic.    

New models, new possibilities

One of the few certainties about the COVID-19 pandemic is that the neoliberal model of economic management anywhere in the world is unsuitable to develop a modern society committed to the social welfare of its members. So it’s quite probable that some countries will try again to a great or lesser extent to strengthen the States as guarantors of public services capable of providing basic protection to the large social groups affected by this disease.

Our government is compelled to proceed with a sense of responsibility and also with courage now that the world economic crisis and the U.S. blockade have intensified, to the disadvantage of our wretched economy. President Miguel Díaz-Canel has issued an appeal for the release of the productive forces, which PCC First Secretary Raúl Castro endorsed with a very classical expression in the Cuban colloquial style: “We must jump on that train and never again get off it”.

Even if the government’s prime task is the economy, the reinforcement of its state and public media system is not a minor concern if the Revolution expects to count on the great majority’s support and particularly on that of a segment of the younger generations who don’t identify with the narrative of many of the political and mass organizations, in times of diverse scenarios of cultural war and media convergence.

An adequate approach to the topic of public communication policies, specifically as regards media organizations, would also make it possible to join efforts aimed at captivating sectors who are not convinced, for a variety of reasons, that Cuban socialism is feasible and capable of building a social model to the satisfaction of its citizens’ spiritual and material needs. It’s not a matter of attracting those already committed to our process, but conveying the emancipatory message of democracy, social justice — with economic prosperity — and beauty that Cuban socialism is duty-bound to build for its citizens, by its own means and against powerful global interests.

For decades, Cuban journalists have endured, probably more than in many other professions in the country, not only material and financial hardship for such a complex and sensitive task on a sociopolitical level, but also high levels of professional intrusion and external interference by officials and institutions hardly acquainted with the trade’s productive routines, but which cause a great deal of damage. In keeping with the dictates of common sense and as a statesman rightly said very recently, let’s not expect different results if we apply the same methods. It’s time for change.

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