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?

Tranlator: Jesús Bran

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

Ricardo Ronquillo (RR): Actually, it’s all about universally accepted communicational values. For instance, a comparison with UNESCO’s Code of Professional Ethics of the Press shows that they are included in the same or very similar words in almost every code of its kind around the world in reference to deontological values of paramount importance to the exercise of communication and journalism. They could be said to be universally shared professional and moral values.

If we review each chapter of that international code and compare it with its versions in most other countries, we will be amazed at their similitude and resemblance.

I can mention people’s right to true information: people and individuals have the right to acquire an objective picture of reality by means of accurate and comprehensive information as well as to express themselves freely through the various media of culture and communication.

The journalist’s dedication to objective reality: the foremost task of the journalist is to serve the people’s right to true and authentic information through an honest dedication to objective reality whereby facts are reported conscientiously in their proper context.

The journalist’s social responsibility: information in journalism is understood as social good and not as a commodity, which means that the journalist shares responsibility for the information transmitted and is thus accountable not only to those controlling the media but ultimately to the public at large, including various social interests.

The journalist’s professional integrity: the social role of the journalist demands that the profession maintain high standards of integrity, including the journalist’s right to refrain from working against his or her conviction or from disclosing sources of information as well as the right to participate in the decision-making of the medium in which he or she is employed.

Public access and participation: the nature of the profession also demands that the journalist promote access by the public to information and participation of the public in the media, including the obligation of correction or rectification and the right of reply.

Respect for privacy and human dignity: an integral part of the professional standards of the journalist is respect for the right of the individual to privacy and human dignity, in conformity with provisions of international and national law concerning protection of the rights and the reputation of others, prohibiting libel, calumny, slander and defamation.

Respect for public interest: along the same lines, the professional standards of the journalist prescribe due respect for the national community, its democratic institutions and public morals.

Respect for universal values and diversity of cultures: a true journalist stands for the universal values of humanism, above all peace, democracy, human rights, social progress and national liberation, while respecting the distinctive character, value and dignity of each culture, as well as the right of each people to choose freely and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems.

Thus, the journalist also participates actively in the social transformation towards democratic betterment of society and contributes through dialogue to a climate of confidence in international relations conducive to peace and justice, détente, disarmament and national development.

Elimination of war and other great evils confronting humanity: the ethical commitment to the universal values of humanism calls for the journalist to abstain from any justification for, or incitement to, wars of aggression and the arms race, especially in nuclear weapons, and all other forms of violence, hatred or discrimination, especially racialism.

We could say the same about constitutional provisions enshrined in practically all those high-order regulatory instruments worldwide, including those related to freedom of the press, of thought, and of speech, which lead—much as the ethical values—to the various national communication policies.

What’s certain is that, despite their recognition as universal values and principles, their translation into policies and their realization in the daily life of nations and people alike have been the object of different interpretations depending on their views and political-ideological systems as well as on how they grade on the international power scale. Otherwise we would have not been talking for such a long time about the need for a new world information order, which actually ended up as nothing but the new world disorder of manipulation that prevails today in this pandemic 21^st century. The situation is so serious that we’re all living without distinction through the so-called post-truth era.

Unfortunately, far from providing some necessary balance and good sense in the middle of this global chaotic manipulation, the so-called information society and its recent world summits have reinforced it instead. That’s why the civil society entities are challenging the turn that the said society is currently taking.

It’s quite well known and established that the actions for and funds devoted to reaching social goals were no match for the enormous changes that the de-regulation and privatization of infrastructure imposed on telecommunications. In Latin America, just to mention one region of the world, all communication nodes go through the United States.

The richest and most powerful countries have a very peculiar version of that global society, designed with the sole aim of having their interests of all-out dominance and influence prevail over the sovereignty of the peoples and their basic rights to a dignified life. More than a few hold that the so-called information society should be considered as just an invention by big business and the governments behind it to justify their needs for globalization, despite certain progress in some parts of the world which, however, is insufficient to bridge the huge digital and other hurtful gaps and solve their bitter consequences in every respect.

On the other hand, the total crisis—as some analysts call it—caused by the pandemic coronavirus is revealing the fragility of the so highly praised private media systems that some people see as a solution to Cuba’s problems with communications and the press. In fact, we could speak of a re-assessment of the public systems’ relevance in very sensitive areas, and the media is certainly one of them.

The pandemic has dealt a harsh blow to these private systems. In Italy, the four main associations of newspaper and periodical editors—AEEPP, ARI, CONEQTIA and ARCE—which gather 260 publishers and boast over 60 million readers, were forced to send the Government a joint document demanding measures to prevent the collapse of the sector and the disappearance of their publications and newspapers.

The viral fever that affects the media is also raising the temperature in Spain, where the leaders of the system themselves acknowledge that the mass media situation is becoming nothing short of “ruinous”.

As reported by the [Spanish] daily El País, private newspaper editors and radio and TV channels shouted a loud cry since, in spite of their skyrocketing ratings and extensive news coverage, advertising has taken a nosedive as a result of the economy’s sudden stop and the emergency measures that followed. And this, they warn, threatens to unleash a process of adjustments bound to be even harder than the ones made in the wake of the 2008 crisis and cause a substantial job reduction, if not the closing of local newspapers and broadcasting stations.

All of this forced them to urge the Government to come to the aid of their activity, essential to the citizens, with a plan based on endorsements and soft loans for media companies, Social Security quota bonuses in exchange for job protection, and increased institutional advertising campaigns.

The virus has had such a great impact that Fernando Yarza, president of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), pointed out that “if no aid is forthcoming, this will become a tsunami and a tragedy for democracy».

Antonio Fernández-Galiano, president of AMI (the Spanish mass media association) which brings together Spain’s main media outlets, said that they are facing a hitherto unknown problem, “the collapse of revenues when we have less financial capacity than in the previous crisis”.

The whole scenario shows that, if nothing else, what’s missing is a universally accepted communication policy or a single referent on which to build any model. Perhaps the model is actually in line with José Carlos Mariátegui’s idea that it has to be a heroic creation, especially in our dearest Cuba, as well-beloved as it is burdened with untold prejudice and apprehension while faced with one of the most aggressive and immoral propaganda apparatus in the history of the world.

As in many other spheres of Cuban life subject to far-reaching rectification, some experiences and models implemented elsewhere are useful as reference and, of course, under study. For example, I sat on a PhD thesis examination panel at the School of Communication of the University of Havana, and it was very interesting to discuss the European experience with public media models. One of the topics that drew most of my attention was the economic sustainability of those media, derived from a combination of public funds, forms of self-financing and even public taxes.

Given the type of society and political system that most of us Cubans chose and confirmed in the new Constitution, we cannot disregard the experience of change in the media models adopted in socialist countries like China or Vietnam. The constitutions born from popular and left-wing governments in Latin America—long forced to cope with private media models turned into real political parties, as denounced by ex-president Rafael Correa—are no less interesting. Many of those governments tried to make their respective media systems more righteous and balanced, and those that didn’t or failed in the attempt still regret it.

RT. How can Cuba’s true public sphere be characterized with respect to access to information, the media, and the freedom of speech? Which practices are—or not—progressive?

RR. Since late 2018 we are witnessing a major change of direction in the country. We used to say back then that if we were the Cuban Yoruba Society we would say that the letter of the year 2018 had been communication. We saw a change of concepts at the level of the top political leadership. [President] Díaz-Canel’s interview for [TV network] Telesur, which captured many people’s attention then, was quite revealing in that connection.

The current President of the Republic started by saying there that communication was extremely important as a national strategic asset, a resource of political leadership and popular engagement. One of his most revolutionary statements was that the media should play a role in popular control.

Society has various political, institutional, jurisdictional and popular control mechanisms. The Cuban Revolution, so close to the U.S., developed in a situation of constant aggression, harassment and economic blockade. As a result, it was decided that in general the media would be to a large extent a part of the mechanisms of political control.

Now, in recent times, the notion has gradually gained ground that the media must be a part of the popular control mechanisms. The fact that Díaz-Canel, a member of the country’s new generation of revolutionary leaders, is aware of that and one of the main advocates and promoters of a transformation of the role that communication and the media must play in Cuba, is a sign that our past views about those issues are changing. At the same time, we implemented the so-called Program for Informatization of the Society, organized in stages, as well as the professed e-Government, also designed to shape up our communication policy, the first one to be approved sice the triumph of the Revolution.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the prime task that the X Congress of the Cuban Association of Journalists gave us was to establish a new model of public media for Cuban socialism. The mere fact that we acknowledge the need to advance toward a new model is an extraordinary expression of change.

We used to rely on the fact that we had a very well structured public media system and a guaranteed hegemony of influences. But the country’s info-communicational scenario has changed and now the audiences receive information and views through multiple channels which not always come necessarily from the public media, the political and mass organizations or other legal media recognized today in Cuba. The Cuban society is also going through radical changes.

During a debate that we held at the José Martí Institute of Journalism I offered as an example that in every meeting of the UNEAC National Board of Directors and the Hermanos Saíz Association we discussed the engagement of public media in the defense of the so-called cultural hierarchies. We often see that some emerging artists who enjoy no news coverage get a name for themselves sooner than those who usually have good press.

That tells us that the influence of the Cuban public media system will depend on its ability to adapt to the challenges of the new infocommunicational scenario. We have to change the codes.

In the last few years we have recognized that the Cuban communication model has to overcome its structural crisis in a number of ways. We must not be afraid of admitting to the crisis of a model that thrived for most of the revolutionary period but began to crumble in the 1980s, when there was even talk of the need for a Media Act.

Those structural problems become manifest in the economy of the media and the journalists and, from a jurisdictional standpoint, in the relationship between the media and the political and institutional system. It’s because there are no clear legal regulations about their rights and duties in our social and institutional context. The cracks are also noticeable at the level of the discourse, leaving aside the confusion about journalism and propaganda.

Cuban scholars such as the late Jose Marti National Journalism Award-winner Julio García Luis uphold the idea that we must move toward a more autonomous and self-regulated model in which the media can enjoy more editorial and economic independence. And a last basic and essential dimension of the media’s structural crisis is its declining credibility. We must be honest and admit that fact.

After the call for a public debate in Cuba following Raúl’s inauguration, his speech in [the province of] Camagüey on a 26^th of July included, for the first time, questions about our public media’s credibility, at a time when it was like a precious stone, the dream emerald of any model of journalism in the post-truth era. 

We must be really worried about this now. Now that our citizens are under the strong sway of multiple channels, including those provided by the new technologies, the impact of our public media system will be largely contingent on its authority, prestige and influence on its addressees.

Furthermore, the audiences are turning to the Internet and the social networks. Figures have it that every Cuban that gets connected to the former joins at once one of the latter. In the case of Cuba, people are getting connected first and foremost through the social networks. There are channels mobilizing people and molding principles, sometimes on the fringes of the country’s public media and at odds with the value system that we defend for our society. How capable is our public media system of reaching out and conquering those audiences in the new scenarios?

On one hand, we must reinforce our traditional platforms, and on the other, move at a rapid pace to win over those audiences, most of which have acquired virtual citizenship. So if our public media system is unable to understand the meaning of those facts to the symbolic construction of our society, our failure to adapt the system to the present-day circumstances will seriously endanger the Revolution’s political project.

Under UPEC’s new Board of Directors the organization decided to work in three key directions: one is related to our responsibility to sensitize society to the importance of the State and Government Communication Policy, to change some concepts that we still embrace. Another is to make sure that every media outlet manages to transform its editorial and economic management model. And last but not least, to represent the professional and human interests of Cuban journalists.

The Communication Policy offers great opportunities for a change in the country’s public media system. For many years, to cite but one instance, we were prejudiced against the use in Cuba of advertising and sponsorship. For a certain period, the Revolution stood by other concepts for reasons then justified, but in truth the Cuban economic context has gradually changed. Now we have a large number of economic forms. Therefore, advertising is all but a necessity in the new economic context, but the current regulations prevent the media system, for example, from using advertising as a means of livelihood. One of the problems to be resolved is that our public and social media system is too regulated, to the point of being paralyzed in some respects, while a totally deregulated ecosystem keeps growing in parallel.

With this policy, our public media will have new ways of earning its sustenance other than just advertising. There is talk of a change in the media management models. The communication policy opens up three possibilities: one, the State budget (we have a public media system that the State is responsible for supporting); two, forms of budgeting for special cases; and third, the possibility of establishing communication enterprises in Cuba.

This topic has certainly triggered debate. The country is breaking new ground and that always gives rise to differing opinions. Another delicate issue under discussion, almost a taboo subject in past times, is which media will be official and which won’t.

A significant sign of the times is the redefinition or vindication of “transparency”, a word that used to make us feel ashamed or suspicious because of the consequences of glasnost in the countries of the so-called real-socialism. We are speaking very clearly about the need for transparent institutions, accountability, and popular citizen and social control.

It’s no coincidence that the word glasnost defined the way in which the Cuban State, Government, institutions and media system would approach the serious coronavirus pandemic and let us witness events as curious as the successive reports of felonies and cases of corruption in our media, something quite revealing by our standards.

In short, the outline of the new model that we want is steadily taking shape. As I see it, it will rest on three essential pillars: a new kind of relationship between the public media and the institutional system, a new editorial management model, and a new economic management model.

RT. How to distinguish the public from the state media in Cuba? And from the non-state media? When the Constitution stipulates that “in no case shall the fundamental mass media be the object of private ownership”, is it recognizing the existence of “non-fundamental” private media? Moreover, is the form of ownership the only thing that defines a public media outlet? Can a state media outlet be not public or a private one be public? 

RR. This topic has long been debated in Cuba. Let’s agree that we still describe some media as public even if they’re not —according to internationally accepted concepts— or at least that such status is debatable. It has to do perhaps with the fact that, given their nature and purpose, all fundamental Cuban media have an undeniable vocation for public service, regardless of their owner. It’s beyond question that their profiles, content, principles and editorial lines have greater significance, affected, admittedly, by institutional mediations and dependencies which are challenged by many and prevented the directors —as laid down in the country’s political and programmatic documents to this effect—from always being responsible for editorial decisions. Ideally, the Cuban media would enjoy their long-awaited “self-regulation”, a very autochthonous concept born from the studies and lucidity of Julio García Luis, one of the most, if not the most, prominent scholar and critic in this field.

We could go into these issues in greater detail, but rather than talking about what we did—which we still do to a large extent—what matters is that we are advancing toward clearer and more lasting definitions. As I said, it’s no coincidence that we are redefining the concepts of official and nonofficial media.

The new Constitution sheds light on this topic by stating that the fundamental social mass media, no matter their form and support, are socialist property of the whole people or their political, social and mass organizations. If we look at the composition of our media it’s easy to see, on the basis of that definition, that additional provisions are in order, just like for other sensitive subjects enshrined in the Magna Carta which are already under consideration.

Based on Latin America’s experience and situation, UNESCO even developed a guide of principles and good practices for public media and provided a definition that we could also use somehow as a reference, without overlooking our own society’s characteristics:

The scope of their public service was initially designed with geographical and socioeconomic rules, but technological integration paved the way for its extension to different screens and devices for informational and entertaining purposes; editorial and financial independence not subject to frequent revisions to the detriment of their operational autonomy; independence of their governing boards from the political and economic powers; diversity and plurality of contents and impartiality of their programs; a public service mandate established by regulations; accountability to the public at large and to regulatory bodies having a degree of autonomy from government; a production of contents governed by public interest and not by commercial standards or partisan expectations; the provision of absent or weak contents because they don’t fit in with the commercial or partisan logic.

We must also admit that not all of them are clear about the real scope, extent and plurality of the Cuban media, by far oversimplified. An in-depth analysis will show that ours are richer and more complex than the ill-willed caricature that some try to portray to discredit our political model and contribute to bringing it down. There are also those who offer millions of dollars, scholarships and all kinds of projects to try to impose formulas totally at variance with the real interests and needs of the Cuban people, who are well-seasoned by all accounts—as some choose to forget—in the prevalence of private media under the pre-1959 republic.

As the country changes, so does the national media ecosystem on the basis of the supremacy of socialist ownership by the whole people and their political, social and mass organizations established by a large majority of people, who would have to be suicidal to let their main mass media go private.

I confess that it hurts to read or hear those who claim to be “independent” journalists and favor media privatization in Cuba as they shout from the rooftops, with shameless pride, that their funds come from U.S. entities indisputably proven to be nothing but fronts of the CIA and other agencies seeking world hegemony to remove and appoint governments as they please.

British journalist Frances Stonor Saunders gives a masterful description of the screenplay of that movie in The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, presented in some of our book fairs. Her book exposes the secret campaign through which some of the most enthusiastic supporters of freedom of thought in the West like George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., as well as renowned intellectuals from the former socialist countries, ended up becoming, consciously or otherwise, vulgar instruments of the U.S. secret service.

On account of the liberating values and purposes that inspire the Cuban socialist project and the traditions that our revolutionary journalism inherited from figures as remarkable and universal as Félix Varela or José Martí, Cuba has great chances of building a type of media likely to become a benchmark for the world. If there is a place on this planet where it’s possible to create a type of media that is a part of the mechanisms of popular control rather than a tool of domination and manipulation by the big circles of economic and political power, it’s precisely Cuba.

RT. 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 ethical, professional, legal and other standards should govern the performance of a public media service system?

RR. That relates to a previous question. As I read about these issues in the daily Juventud Rebelde I was wondering: what’s more important in a modern interconnected society, the prevalence of a widespread system of public ownership of the media or the trust of its readers/public? Does the type of media ownership guarantee by itself their much-disputed credibility? Among others, these are questions that we must ask ourselves in the Cuba that took the first steps to update its model of socialism and, therefore, its model of journalism.

Or maybe we should ask a different question: does the monopoly of public media ownership guarantee that of credibility, influences, authority? The present degree of public exposure and news coverage requires that the discourse, in order to be effective, legitimize itself in the public eye.

Doctor of Communication Sciences Julio García Luis maintained that there were of course big media monopolies, part of a grotesque tyranny on a variety of local, regional and worldwide scales. However, they subsist thanks to their apparent porosity, mimetic ability and feigned independence from real power. Conversely, what is difficult to see nowadays is a monopoly that intends to be airtight like the ones we already know.

He also said that ideology, realized or not by means of the discourse, is what allows us to perceive the world neatly -- through a distorting mirror or clearly -- and organize power and the exercise of hegemony. That’s what makes it possible to have control over social factors.

In the case of Cuba, he held, such control cannot rely on deception and manipulated symbols, but rather on the provision of adequate information and interpretation and facts to convince the public at large, who account all in all for the vast majority.

The social networks, citizen journalism and other phenomenons are making radical changes in the traditional forms of both the so-called public opinion and consensus.

Other questions that we should ask ourselves are: how to build consensus in the information society that we are inexorably entering? What role does journalism play in the construction of a true and credible hegemony of revolutionary ideology? How can the communication systems take possession of the new tools so as to be more democratic and participatory? How to guarantee greater authority over and influence on the audiences, who tend to become fragmented?

Truth is, the Cuban public communication system is challenged to redefine its authority over the audiences on the only possible basis: credibility. This is only possible through change, not only of the media system but of society’s entire communication model, and a truly revolutionary conception that integrates the media into the forms of popular control.

Contemporary research shows that such a structural weakness has various dimensions. Therefore, at this new juncture, we must consider a structural change, as established in the last UPEC congress and subsequent professional and political meetings.

In order to overcome these tendencies, we count on both qualified professionals and the strength of a journalistic and revolutionary tradition supported by a deeply-rooted vocation for service, inherited from the founders of the nation. One of them, Father Félix Varela, upon addressing the function and scope of journalism, said: “I renounce the honor of being applauded for the satisfaction of being useful to the homeland”. His brilliant and faithful follower, Jose Marti, thought that the press should be the watchdog of the motherland: “It must disobey the appetites of personal good and pay impartial attention to the public good”.

That legacy should also be useful to those accustomed to the apologies, the silence and the distortion that we had in abundance along the bumpy road of the construction of socialism.

Several basic reasons explain the unfeasibility of the media model of institutional dependence and reaffirmation that, as a rule, we still practice. Let’s move on toward another one based on the confrontation of the best revolutionary ideas.

While a vertically-oriented and reaffirmative journalism allowed us to forge the great consensus that Cuba needed to stand up to the aggressiveness of U.S. governments and build a society for a very specific historical situation, it twisted the media’s counterweight and balancing role and that of other Cuban democratic confrontation structures.

This is happening as the Revolution updates its economic model, a first step toward a number of gradual transformations. It’s our historical responsibility to help—which we are already doing, not without difficulty and misunderstanding—with the creation of the necessary political consensus and our professional surveillance, lest its scope be distorted.

We cannot forget that the Revolution is about to face its hardest acid test: the handover of the historical generation, while the Cuban media is gradually but relentlessly giving up the monopoly of influences as a result of the boom of new technologies.

In the midst of this readjustment, the Cuban public media should have a free hand to support a civic debate and launch a revolutionary counterattack.

RT. 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?

RR. We agree with the words of Camagüey province member of parliament, Daicar Saladrigas, director of the media multiplatform Adelante, during the discussion and approval of the National Assembly’s legislative schedule. She pointed out the need to accelerate as much as possible—taking into account the complexity and variety of the ongoing transformations in many sensitive matters of Cuban society—the changes to the communication and media system.

We know that this could be seen as a rather selfish sectorial insight, but it’s definitely not. On the contrary, it’s actually an attempt to preserve and consolidate a system that is essential to Cuba and the Revolution’s political project. The representative’s opinion had a favorable reception among the relevant authorities, who will do their best to achieve progress in every front without waiting for the dates scheduled in the said program.

Communication is one of the modern era’s fast-changing systems, and we witness almost every day the implications that those changes mean for us. This is no ordinary system. According to experts, it’s a hinge system on which the rest of them depend; hence the recognition of its strategic value in the aforesaid approved communication policy.

Now that we are on the verge of leaving behind our instrumental view of communication and journalism, we know that they are part of a complicated symbolic production and reproduction system, where the cost of our mistakes would be too high. And that’s precisely the field that the enemies of socialism have developed with great skill and where they are obviously more successful. Throw in the fact that, of all the country’s systems, the media is the only once faced with a parallel fast-growing private counterpart which, as I explained, receives funds in the millions for expansion.

At any rate, I think it’s fair to say that the changes are by no means held up, waiting to meet the deadlines of the parliament’s work schedule. I already mentioned a number of fields and ways of opening up their horizons to a new approach to communication and journalism.  

I would end by saying that lies and manipulation have a short life where the light of truth is brighter.