Apprehension of the Press

Apprehension of the Press / Regina Coyula
Posted on June 26, 2013

As a young girl, I wanted to study journalism, entirely for the romantic
idea to follow in the tracks of my grandfather, a decent Cuban who from
the jungle in The Free Cuban and then from The World and Bohemia made me
feel proud of my name.

A proud lady with the last name of Nuiry, to whom my name meant nothing,
decided not to accept me into the School of Journalism, and after a long
detour, now as a citizen I am fulfilling that desire of youth.

Did the Congress of the Journalists Union surprise me? There will be a
Congress, but will there be journalism? Yes, they confirm to me. Not all
there will be journalists, but all will be official.

It follows that the independent press not known for its certified
members, is still a press that establishes the necessary counterweight
for contrasting points of view and on more than a few occasions for
important topics that the colleagues of the guild pass over.

The press that "informs" us is an embarrassment. No journalist seems to
realize the ridiculousness of news such as: The Syrian government
inflicted a defeat on the terrorists and mercenaries to regain control
over an important area of Aleppo. This short note serves as an essay on
how the information Cubans receive is transformed. We never heard that
the government lost control of the area, and we still learn that the
Syrian opposition is heterogeneous and essentially native.

The Cuban press offers up a banquet of the evils of the world: the
crisis in Europe, political corruption, what to say about the United
States that even has its own journalist (Nicanor Leon Cotayo, no, not a
character from Macondo), another specialized in discovering the links
between the CIA and the Cuban mafia.

With so many foreign problems, and with such international solidarity
with the cause of the Cuban Five, little time is left for national
reporting. So they say almost nothing about the arrests and trials for
corruption, the failure of the sugar harvest, the change of sign of the
Cuban Workers Federation Congress, the housing debt of the victims of
the last two?… five?… eight? cyclones. And these kinds of things, as the
journalist Fritz Suarez Silva says. Oh, and they aren't my lies.

24 June 2013

Source: "Apprehension of the Press / Regina Coyula | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/apprehension-of-the-press-regina-coyula/