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Friday, October 11, 2013

In a Democratic Cuba, 'Journalist' Will Need No Qualifiers

Yoani Sanchez Award-winning Cuban blogger

In a Democratic Cuba, 'Journalist' Will Need No Qualifiers
Posted: 10/10/2013 5:02 pm

Last week a friend asked me if the coming of democratic changes to Cuba
would result in independent journalism. I stopped to meditate, because
there are answers that shouldn't be thrown out there without carefully
weighing them. In the seconds I remained silent passing through my head
were all the images and moments of those reporters of risks and words
that have influenced my life. I thought about Raúl Rivero, who left
journalism and the official institutions to take a dangerous leap toward
freedom for his pen. I remember the typewriter permanently on the table
in his apartment on Peñalver Street, the smell of his cigar, his arms
reaching out to receive everyone who came. Undoubtedly a man who loved
his profession which put him at the center of so much repression and damage.

I kept going over the names. Reinaldo Escobar who permanently infected
me with the virus of journalism, my colleagues of Primavera de Cuba, the
many friends who have fed the pages of Cubanet, Diario de Cuba, Café
Fuerte, HablemosPress, Misceláneas de Cuba, Voces Cubanas, Penúltimos
Días and of so many other sites, blogs, press agencies and simple
bulletins with just a single sheet folded in half. Spaces in which they
have narrated this country concealed by the official media and the
triumphalism of political slogans. People who choose the most difficult
path, instead of remaining silent, faking it, staying out of trouble
like the vast majority. Thanks to them we have heard innumerable news
stories silenced in the national newspapers, television and radio, the
private and hegemonic property of the Communist Party.

So, when my friend sprung that question on me, I concluded that in a
democratic nation journalism has no need of surnames. It is not
"official" or "independent." And so, as a small tribute to all those
reporters of yesterday and today, I have written the prologue to the
anthology, "Con voz abierta/With Open Voices," which presents a
selection of news and opinion written from within Cuba and in the most
precarious of conditions from the legal and material point of view. It
is a book of journalists... simply journalists, without qualifiers that
determine their affiliation to any ideology. A compilation that will
bring about this future in which we will not need to make distinctions
between professionals of the press.

The post Periodistas independientes: periodistas appeared first on
Generación Y by Yoani Sánchez.

Source: "In a Democratic Cuba, 'Journalist' Will Need No Qualifiers |
Yoani Sanchez" -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/in-a-democratic-cuba-jour_b_4080609.html?utm_hp_ref=world

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