Broadcasts to Cuba questioned

[Mika]

Broadcasts to Cuba questioned
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/888708.html

Telephone surveys in Cuba show hardly anyone there listens to Radio Martí, a congressional report said.

BY FRANCES ROBLES
[e-mail]
WASHINGTON -- After decades on the air and the expense of half a billion dollars, it remains unclear whether any Cubans listen to or watch U.S.-funded radio and television broadcasts to the island, according to a new congressional report on Radio and TV Martí released Wednesday.

Last year, less than 1 percent of people surveyed said they had listened to Radio Martí in the past week, said the study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigating arm of Congress. But the same report said nearly half of new Cuban arrivals to the United States said they had listened to the broadcasts in the past six months. The telephone survey of at least 1,200 Cubans was conducted from March 2008 through January 2009.

Although the GAO report states that programming has improved and praised its management, it said broadcasts are often biased and fail to adhere to journalistic standards.

Pedro Roig, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, questioned the listener surveys because even the pollsters acknowledged that Cubans who responded to survey calls believed the surveyor was a member of the Cuban government -- and Radio Martí is illegal in Cuba.

''You have people surveyed on the telephone saying nobody listens to it and recent arrivals showing five million people are listening to Radio Martí,'' Roig said. ``You can take both with a grain of salt.''

The report comes on the heels of public criticisms by high-profile Cuban dissidents, including Martha Beatriz Roque who said the station was not airing dissidents' reports of human rights abuses on the island and urged its broadcasters to ``report from the heart.''

The U.S. government spends $34 million a year on the Miami-based radio and television station with the aim of breaking Cuba's lock on information, but the frequencies that bring information to the closed society are constantly jammed by the Cuban government.

''Rather than spend funds on another study, they should use the money upgrading the technology so Radio Martí transmissions can get into more homes,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., who requested the GAO report, said the study underscores the need for congressional hearings.

''How do we know we are getting a return on the investment?'' Delahunt said. ``I challenge you to find anyone who has watched TV Martí. It's a TV station in search of an audience.''

In a written statement responding to the report, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Radio and TV Martí operations, said in general it agrees with the report's conclusions and recommendations, but stressed that the government's restrictions make it extremely difficult to measure its audience.

Roig said Roque's suggestion that they report more emotionally is exactly what the station avoids in order to create a professional, respected news broadcast.

''I reject the notion that we are biased,'' Roig said. ``If somebody listens to Radio Martí, they will find highly professional dedicated journalists. During the campaign, there was plenty of criticism of President Bush, and we put them on the air.''

Hugo Landa, director of a website that posts independent reports from Cuba, said surveys conducted in Cuba are unreliable and that the Martí broadcasts were an important source for outside news.

''We have independent reports from Cuba that people do listen to Radio Martí,'' said Landa, director of Coral Gables-based CubaNet (www.cubanet.org). ``It's difficult, but people do listen . . . It is one of the few ways people have to get information other than the official propaganda.''

The television broadcasts, he said, are less successful.

[Judi Lynn]

1. These same clowns lie to US citizens by swearing there's a news blackout in Cuba, and the people

can't get any unbiased news if they don't take more than $30,000,000.00 of our hard-earned tax dollars each year, and run the station themselves, programming it all themselves, and handling all the staffing, and spending all the money themselves according to their own tastes. We bankroll them.

In the meantime, try to find out what the Cuban people do learn about the rest of the world. For instance, they get the Spanish language and English language programs on both radio and tv from Florida. A Canadian DU'er who goes to Cuba regularly, just the way Europeans and Latin Americans and Asians, Australians do, tells us, or would tell us, still, had she not been banned due to her serious disgust with prevalent right-wing blindness infecting too many US citizens, that if you take your Walkman with you you'll be able to pick up US radio walking in Havana.

Cubans who put antennas on their roofs get Miami, etc. tv stations. They wear US clothing styles. They have rap singers. They get radio and tv from Central America, and other Caribbean islands. They read all our newspapers and magazines.

Why the need for us to plow so much of our money into that pork in Miami, anyway? To make a few Cuban "exiles" wealthy? Clearly!

Do a search on Colorado former Congressman, David Skaggs, who dared to stand up against these radical reactionary freaks:

~snip~
Dealing from principle --- ex-Representative Skaggs

However, in 1993, former Representative David Skaggs (D-CO), in an attempt to trim unnecessary budgetary spending targeted for the Martis, was able to convince his House brethren to block funding for the two operations --- a measure which did not meet the same success in the Senate, where it was inevitably defeated. Skaggs paid a high price for his bold move, and came under withering fire from anti-Havana hardliners. Marti’s congressional supporters, led by none other than treasury plunderer Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart responded with a stark warning that revenge would be exacted on those who might threaten the continuation of the Marti operation, making an example of Skaggs by attempting to slash federal funding for projects in his home district. However, Skaggs refused to give up the fight, and he continued his campaign against the project, in particular its television component, until he retired in 1998. Skaggs admitted, "You know that if you kick the Cuba issue, you're going to have a bad day.” As a result of his personal experience, the Miami New Times reported in a November 12, 1998 article that Skaggs bitterly expressed outrage at the “corruption of United States policy that is inherent in our Cuba policy,” explaining, “by corruption I mean the untoward influence of a relatively small segment of the population in Florida and the money that small segment of the population brings to bear, and how it distorts the policy choices this government makes.”

More:
http://cubajournal.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
(around 1/2 way down the page)

~~~~~~~~~~~~
~snip~
7/1/93 After having funds for Radio and TV Marti deleted in a closed mark-up session, the House Appropriations Committee restores funds for Radio Marti but not TV Marti (CAC, 6/22/93; CM, 6/25/93; MH, 6/25/93). Rep. Diaz-Balart succeeds in cutting $23 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in an effort to repay Rep. David Skaggs (D-CO) for cutting $17.5 million from Radio and TV Marti. Rep. Skaggs complains, "I was greatly disturbed and saddened that the normal business of this House was subject to these retributive tactics. This is an example of how difficult it is to pull the plug on a program, even one as ineffective as this one." Skaggs believes the programs are unnecessary because Cubans are able to view commercial broadcasts from Florida. (MH, 7/3/93) Another Cuban American Member of Congress, first-term Representative Robert Menendez (D-NJ), tells the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he intends to monitor projects in the districts of Members who are "obviously on a mission" to oppose the "peaceful diplomacy" programs of Radio and TV Marti: "It could be anyone...For every action, there's a reaction." (CAC, 7/23/92; RC, 7/5/93)

~snip~
7/2/93 Following the conflict between Rep. Skaggs, who cut TV and Radio Marti funding, and Rep. Diaz-Balart, who cut funding for Boulder-based federal programs, CANF sends out a press release announcing "Opposition to Cuba initiative costs Boulder rep pet project," sending Colorado papers to press with news of the Boulder-Miami feud. (MH, 10/13/93)

Excerpts found a little beyond 1/2 down the page at:
http://www.cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0146b.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Radio and TV Martí: Washington Guns after Castro at Any Cost
Radio and TV Martí: Miami’s Children of Scorn

• At a time when the domestic budget is being savaged by meat-cleaver cuts in its social programs, Congress’ FY 2006 appropriations include an outrageous $10 million plane for a failed Radio and TV Martí project
  
• Funding Radio and TV Martí reveals the unprecedented reach of the rightwing extremist segment of Miami’s Cuban community into the U.S. legislative process and the public purse
  
• Radio and TV Martí is almost entirely characterized by propagandistic low-quality programming, mismanagement, and a striking inability to reach the intended Cuban island audience
  
• Miami is able to almost alchemistically convert hundreds of thousands of dollars in private campaign contributions to Republican and even Democratic political campaigns, and in return has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for their initiatives that do nothing else but fuel their ideological passions at the expense of the squandering of public funds that produce no public good

http://www.coha.org/2006/03/radio-and-tv-marti-washington-guns-after-castro-at-any-cost/