Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality

by Salim Lamrani

In this concise and detailed work, Salim Lamrani addresses questions of media concentration and corporate bias by examining a perennially controversial Cuba. Lamrani argues that the tiny island nation is forced to contend not only with economic isolation and a U.S. blockade, but with misleading or downright hostile media coverage. He takes as his case study El País, the most widely distributed Spanish daily. El País (a property of Grupo Prisa, the largest Spanish media conglomerate), has editions aimed at Europe, Latin America, and the U.S., making it is a global opinion leader. Lamrani wades through a swamp of reporting and uses the paper as an example of how media conglomerates distort and misrepresent life in Cuba and the activities of its government. By focusing on eight key areas, including human development, internal opposition, and migration, Lamrani shows how the media systematically shapes our understanding of Cuban reality. This book, with a preface by Eduardo Galeano, provides an alternative view, combining a scholar’s eye for complexity with a journalist’s hunger for the facts.

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 2014

About the author

Salim Lamrani is a doctor in Iberian and Latin American Studies (Paris-Sorbonne University) and a professor at the University of La Réunion, specialising in relations between Cuba and the United States.

He was Marcelo Bielsa's interpreter from 2017 to 2019 and also served as discipline coach with Leeds United, where he was in charge of conflict prevention and imparting values.

Reviews

[Emily Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know this is leftist propaganda, but I was really hoping the author would have conducted a much better researched investigation into the impartiality of the American and Spanish media’s coverage of Cuba. Admittedly, I am a biased reader growing up next door to Juanita Castro (Fidel and Raul’s sister) in Miami, but I had anticipated a deeper dive into the Herald and El Pais to contrast this with the lived experience of the average Cuban. I understand I grew up with propaganda demonizing the Cuban government, but this felt similar. There was a lack of nuance and deep understanding of the issues that the Spanish and Miami media claim to be plaguing the island. Much has changed in the past ten years and I would be curious to hear the author’s opinion on the current mass migration crisis and his thoughts on whether the State Department has continued to foment dissent on the island with the SOS protests.

The first half of the book regurgitates talking points of the Cuban government, with little evidence to demonstrate the claims. While the salutatorian of my elite public high school was smuggled over on a speed boat during our sophomore year and was arguably one of the smartest people I have ever met, I have many questions about the claims of Cuba’s high literacy rates and access to education, especially when contrasted with other Cuban exile students in the public school system. I find like most Americans in Miami, most Cubans who were educated under Fidel’s reign do not read above a third grade level and have issues with applying critical thinking skills. What standardized tool are we using to assess literacy? Is it the knowledge of sight words? I question Cuba’s real commitment to educating students with disabilities, especially after I assigned a totally blind middle schooler, a recent arrival from Cuba, who had never been taught braille. Curiously, there has been no mention of the persecution of people who are gay, which is a reason some of my classmates cited as their reason to flee.

The discussion of Yoani and the Damas En Blanca was fascinating and illuminating. I would have appreciated more information on Cuban dissidents and their connection to USAID. After this book was published a group of Cuban dissident artists were paraded around Miami; however, quite a number of them developed serious drug problems. I will be forever annoyed by El Sexto’s purposeful defacement of working class neighborhoods with his graffiti tag. If they were funded, I suspect much of El Sexto’s money went to fund his alleged meth addiction. I have a hunch this is why Marco Rubio keeps ordering those speed boats to be bombed - revenge for someone ruining the brains of the dissidents he probably hand selected. I fear the same sort of operations continue to be rampant in Miami with the Venezuelan exile community.

Either way, I think it’s pretty obvious the SOS protests were created by the US government meant to entice a new group to come to America and on my most cynical days, I think the plan to throw these people into Alligator Alcatraz was created long before Trump was elected to his second term as a part of a long revenge plot to punish the Cubans who stayed. It’s interesting to see the same sort tactics the Damas En Blanca used play out again, but in America and to deaf ears. It’s also been interesting to watch in 2025, Cubans allege human rights abuses in these prisons with claims such as “they won’t give him his stage 4 hemorrhoid surgery” whereas Americans know thats an elective procedure and our state prisons are truly horrific, much less providing anyone with health care.

The Brothers To The Rescue chapter is laughable. It mentions the articles in the Herald and erroneously claims El Pais was contracted with El Nuevo Herald during this time. The author fails to understand the United States legal system and presents this case as an anomaly. He fails to illustrate how this story was presented to Miamians and why the coverage was wrong. How can you write that the exile community is funded by the government and then allege you can’t spy on a private civilian; aren’t they agents of the government under that logic? Seems like killing an American is a pretty good reason to charge someone. He pushes the claim that the plane was shot down over Cuban airspace without evidence. I enjoyed his brief discussion of Miami’s surveillance culture, which is still actively being employed on leftist sympathizers. In the years since the publication of the book, Obama traded these prisoners for the ability for gringos to get sunburns on the Malecon. And one of the five spies knocked up his wife while he was supposedly in prison. Something fishy is going on, but it’s not addressed in the book with any nuance.

Most notably, the coverage of Elian Gonzalez is missing from the book. This poor child was used by both Americans and Cubans as a propaganda tool. They used to cancel ABC Saturday morning cartoons to film him playing in his yard with the dog a politician purchased for him. I actually cant take this book seriously without a mention of the child who dominated the media in America and in Cuba. Did El Pais not cover Elian?

I did enjoy learning about how Che’s assassin found himself in poverty in his later years and relied on Cuba’s charity medical programs to remove his cataracts. I think this book could have been much better if the author took the time to examine more individuals to prove his bold claims. But quite often, it felt like here’s the Cuban government’s version of events and shame on everyone else for not reporting the party line.

I think the author had a very specific point he wanted to make and I don’t think he coherently made it.