A Journalist’s Dilemma
Why I chose not to report on Cuba

• Home
»
• Central America and North America

By Jonathan Pourzal
This article was printed in Abroad View magazine spring 2008

I arrived in Cuba in spring 2007, enthusiastic about exploring Cuba and its unique history. I am an aspiring journalist, and I planned to publish articles about Cuban society on the Nubiano Exchange (www.thenubianoproject.com) in an effort to do something that’s not often done in Western media: objectively write about Cuban society while living there.

Since the Revolution, the U.S. government has banned Americans from traveling to Cuba, with few exceptions. For this and other reasons, U.S. citizens are normally given a false impression about reality there, which makes the need for unbiased information even greater. 

My desire to go to Cuba stemmed from the fact that most of what is published about Cuba in the United States is biased and falls within two opposing ideological extremes that often act in reaction to one another. American mainstream media demonizes Castro and Cuba’s 1959 Revolution; progressive media sources often tout the Revolution’s great accomplishments without criticism.

 

The 1959 Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, aimed to achieve Cuban independence and create a system that takes care of all of citizens. The truth is, regardless of one’s personal opinion, the Revolution made enormous strides for Cubans. In a country that once had wide wealth disparities and a large poor population, it built a strong egalitarian social system (education, health care, etc.) that was free for all Cubans; it also brought international prestige and influence to Cuba, which has historically been dominated by colonial powers. However, it also made some mistakes, and its controversial policies, some of which are arguably necessary for the nation’s survival, have left it open for criticism. 

Saul Landau, a seasoned American journalist who has been reporting on Cuba since the Revolution’s early days, believes the historic problem with American reporting on Cuba is that most reporters do not conduct the necessary research and subsequently end up recycling skewed perceptions over and over again. Referring to the fact that few reporters who have written about Cuba’s Revolution have actually had contact with any of the original leaders or Cuban citizens who supported the Revolution, he writes:

“…few U.S. journalists penetrated far enough into the revolutionary culture to know how to pose an interesting question. Most began with the idea that the Revolution had failed, without defining the term beyond reference to rationing of food or the absence of U.S.-style freedoms. Mass-media reports still don’t consider in their question formulation the significance of the original goals the revolutionaries had set and therefore don’t comprehend Cuban revolutionary leaders’ seeming obsession with national independence and social justice. Instead, they maintain a focus on some results of class conflict involving violations of human rights and, until 1991, ties to Soviet Communism…It should be no wonder that U.S. citizens’ views about Cuba and Castro are so skewed.”*

After taking part in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Havana Study Abroad program, I felt a little arrogant for having believed I could form definitive conclusions about Cuban society in such a short period of time. I took Cuban culture, history, international relations, and Spanish language courses at the University of Havana and had the opportunity to interact with Cuban officials and speak with many informed Cubans and foreign academics living in Cuba. However the more I learned, the more questions I had. Even after four months in Cuba, I had only just begun to understand the country’s social dynamics. 

I loved living in Cuba, and I appreciate the lessons I learned while there.  I hope that other students who study abroad in the future, especially if they have strong feelings toward a country based on what they have heard and read beforehand, drop those notions before their programs begin. Otherwise, what they see and experience overseas will too simply serve to fit into their preconceived ideas.

It was hard for me to choose not to report on Cuba, but I made the decision feeling that I, as an outsider there who did not speak great Spanish, could not do the culture justice. This does not mean that I believe myself to be an incompetent journalist or that I believe American journalists should avoid reporting on Cuba. But I do believe that any reporting on Cuba should be done with the understanding that it takes great time and effort to put together the full picture in any news report. 

Jonathan Pourzal is a senior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he is a Journalism major with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. He studied abroad in Cuba with UNC Chapel Hill, which operates in partnership with the University of Havana. Pourzal is a founder of AGRADU (Advocates for Grassroots Development in Uganda, www.agradu.org) which sends UNC student interns to Uganda each summer to learn about local sustainable development. 

*“U.S. Media Images of Post Revolutionary Cuba Shaped by Government Policy and Commerical Grammar” by Saul Landau, Latin American Perspectives, issue 150, vol. 33, no.5, Sept. 2006, 118-127.