Publisher’s clearing out: Okay, this might seem like a very local story, but the publisher of the Miami Herald, Jésus Díaz, resigned today. Whoo-hoo, you say, big deal, right?
Well, it is interesting insofar as there were two front-page stories about it, one a sometimes abstruse letter from Díaz himself and the other was a long, rambling account of the events that led to his resignation. Those events happened a few weeks ago when the Herald reported that several reporters for its Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald, had received money from the U.S. government to provide anti-Castro commentaries on the U.S. government-run, Spanish-language Radio Martí network, which broadcasts propaganda to Cuba.
So Jesus fired them. On the spot. No appeal, no deal, no tolerance for ethical lapses of the sort that brought one reporter/commentator $179,000. That’s a lotta propaganda.
But then came the backlash. The local vocal Cuban community rose up, unsubscribed, pulled ads and boycotted the Herald in droves. Seems Jesus had run up against a basic difference between Spanish journalism and Anglo journalism. Apparently, in Spanish journalism it’s okay to eschew objectivism for partisan politics and accept money from the gubmint for it. Especially if you’re railing against Fidel Castro’s regime.
The twist came when the reporters said they had told their former editor — who happens to be conveniently dead — that they were taking the cash for bashing Fidel, and he had said it was okay. Whoops — suddenly Jesus is twisting in the wind, having rashly fired the ethically challenged reporters without having consulted his Quija board to see if indeed the dead editor had approved of the deal with the gubmint.
So amid the hue and cry, new Herald owners McClatchy, which just bought Herald parent Knight Ridder last spring, sent a couple of top guys to Miami to confer with the hapless Jesus. In the end, Díaz (who was born in Cuba and raised in Atlanta) was crucified on the cross of Cuban Castro hatred, and made to give “amnesty” to the reporters and very publicly resign, posting his letter of resignation on the front page of the Herald.
Only in Miami.
Forget for a minute that Radio Martí is heard by absolutely nobody in Cuba because its signal is blocked, despite the U.S. government spending $400,000 per month to broadcast the signal from an airplane that flies just this side of Cuban airspace. Forget that it’s our government spending our tax dollars to pay ethically challenged reporters to broadcast bullshit to Cuba. Forget for a minute that there’s supposedly some nebulous “difference” between Spanish journalism and Anglo journalism. Forget the questionable excuse of “The dead guy said it was alright.” The fact is that the Herald caved to local vocal Cuban pressure because of — money. Subscription money, advertising money, all kinds of money. What price ethics, eh?
Jésus Díaz was right to fire those reporters, regardless of their language and regardless of whatever carte blanche they’d supposedly been given by some dead editor. What they did as reporters was ethically wrong, and the fact that they did not recognize it only means they are not equipped to be reporters for a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper, crappy as it sometimes is. We should be able to expect a higher standard than that for our 50-cent-a-day subscription.
By the way, Castro sucks! Ka-ching!
