MediaWatch: December 1993

Janet Cooke Award: CBS This Morning's Giselle Fernandez Hails "Castro's Playground;" Tunnels with Nightclubs

Painting a "Pretty Postcard" of Cuba

Is the Cold War over? To watch some reporters in Cuba, you might wonder. The old sins of reporting from communist countries -- trading journalistic access for positive publicity, presenting oppressed people's party-line statements as unforced genuine opinion, and treatment of government statements as fact without confirmation -- were all evident in CBS This Morning's live broadcasts from Cuba November 3-5. For repeating almost all the mistakes of past Cuba trips, CBS reporter Giselle Fernandez earned the Janet Cooke Award.

Access for Publicity. CBS This Morning co-host Harry Smith asked Fernandez why the Cubans granted access to their tourist resorts. She replied: "Why not? What's to lose for the government? We were giving them the opportunity to paint a pretty postcard of the country. At the very least, it gives Fidel Castro a chance to show American businessmen some of the opportunities that may await them here someday."

On November 3, Fernandez declared: "Welcome to Fidel Castro's playground, Cuba's Caribbean paradise few have seen, a Cuba the Commandant is now inviting the world to enjoy. It's the promised land Cuba is hoping will guarantee a promising future. In the last two years alone, Cuba and its sultry beaches has become a major vacation hot spot."

She ended without a hint of sarcasm: "While tourism may be changing the landscape of Cuba's Caribbean shores, Fidel Castro is banking on it to lure in foreigners with dollars to try and save his workers' paradise from becoming a paradise lost."

Party-Line Statements. Fernandez never found one person to suggest that perhaps the economic crisis is the fault of communism. Instead, it was all the fault of the U.S. embargo: "On lines for rationed fuel and food, at hospitals with severe shortages of medicine, most all say the embargo, trying to force political change, is the reason they suffer." Fernandez explained pictures of hardship: "The embargo has forced all the Cuban people to be extremely resourceful here just to get through the day."

In another story, Fernandez suggested: "The standoff is rooted in a Cold War mentality that has disappeared from almost every other place on the planet. Along Havana's famous seafront, a proud tradition of honoring a revolutionary hero is passed on to a new generation of Cubans. They sing songs of socialism, songs of tribute to Fidel Castro, and almost all raise their voices against the U.S. embargo."

Cubans told the cameras "It's an injustice against the Cuban people" and "They're selfish because they want to own us and that cannot be, because in this country there's socialism" and "We are Cubans, Communists, and we are ready to die. As old as I am, I am ready to take up arms." 

In the only mention of human rights in three days, Fernandez threw in one soundbite from Jorge Mas Canosa, of the Cuban American National Foundation, noting: "Members of Miami's powerful exile community say it's the only way to end political repression and the violation of human rights here."

On the 5th, Fernandez reported on defectors, both athletes and soldiers: "You believe it when Cuban [baseball] players say national pride is their paycheck. Says pitcher Laslo Vijay, the defectors abandon their families, the love of their people, because of a bunch of dollars...Once players come to the U.S., [defector Rene] Arrocha says, they realize how much they lied to them in Cuba. But outfielder Victor Mesa has a simple reply. They were tired of our system so they committed treason." A few weeks later, 50 Cuban athletes defected in Puerto Rico.

Fernandez did the same in a story on defecting pilots, marching in Cubans to denounce them as traitors. (At least in this case, Harry Smith interviewed defector Orestes Lorenzo back in the U.S. for an opposing view.) But what about dissidents inside Cuba? "For every 20 or 30 people you speak to...you're very lucky if you get one to go on camera," Senior Producer Lin Garlick told MediaWatch.

"You have to talk to a lot of people, not just the Cubans who are within Cuba now, but you have to talk to a lot of people to understand the Cuban psyche. I don't think you expect any person outside of America to tick along and think like an American. And I think maybe what you just said illustrates to me that you're coming from the American viewpoint."

But aren't Cuban-American exiles part of the Cuban story? Garlick countered: "Are you counting all the many, many, many hours and hours and days we've only done on the Cuban exiles?...When you have an opportunity to go into a country and report, what you don't do is try your very best to get the information that you can't normally get there." But the MRC database shows CBS hasn't done a story on Cuban exiles since at least 1990.

Jose Cardenas of the Cuban American National Foundation told MediaWatch a different story: "We gave them a list of dissidents with addresses. The dissidents were fully prepared to meet with them, dissidents on the island who are quite open about it and have no fear of being cited by name or appearing on camera, and somehow they didn't find them. And they're all in Havana."

Government Statements as Fact. On the 4th, Fernandez toured Cuba's military tunnel system, passing on everything the Cubans told her: "The tunnels are built by paid workers and volunteer brigades." Fernandez asked: "So you have a club, a nightclub, in the tunnel? You have a barbershop?" Later, she again said they "told us there are more sophisticated tunnels with...a nightclub, a barbershop." Smith asked: "Did you see any evidence of that?" "No," she replied.

Fernandez played up Cuban claims: "He [the colonel] says they're the largest tunnels in the world...Hundreds of miles snake through the countryside, and all over the city." But only a minute before, Fernandez admitted: "We never saw a completed tunnel." When asked why Fernandez simply passed on the nightclub claims, Garlick told MediaWatch: "I think she probably said they say they have. There's a very big difference." 

Even if they have a tunnel system, CBS never asked why the government builds tunnels and opens five-star hotels while Cubans go without food or medicine. When asked about that, Garlick replied: "You're a little unprofessional. For someone who's never been to Cuba...Giselle has been to Cuba before, I have been to Cuba before, and it's very difficult to fight your pre-judged opinions. You have set yourself up as expert. You have never been there but you obviously consider your viewpoint correct. If you're coming from a journalistic viewpoint, you should get permission to go to Cuba, and then after you've been there a week or two, feel free to criticize. After you have some experience."

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