2023-06-13 22:03:38
This enormous challenge arose, from scratch and against all odds, in the heat of the Cuban Revolution and thus Prensa Latina was born, initially baptized as “the agency that was needed”, and about to celebrate 64 years of uninterrupted work.
Founded on June 16, 1959, when it transmitted its first dispatches to the world by cable, the idea that Cuba and Latin America had their own voice was projected long before, during the guerrilla war.
Fidel Castro perceived at an early date the need to communicate from the mountains the objectives of the Revolution and also to respond to the disinformation of the US media, especially the United Press International (UPI) and Associated Press (AP) agencies.
According to a UNESCO report, the UPI had 151 correspondents in the United States and 110 abroad, while the AP had 110 at home and 57 abroad. Combined, they had more than 400 bureaus and thousands of reporters, distributing news in 111 countries in 48 languages.
Even before the triumph of January 1, 1959, these and other media circulated fake news about the rebels’ fight and even published that Fidel Castro had died, among other lies.
Commander Ernesto Che Guevara assumed this task with enthusiasm and skill and, from the mountains, he first created Radio Rebelde which, at certain times, also reached some other Caribbean countries, as well as the so-called “Press Club” to receive visitors , with whom he secretly coordinated the arrival of some foreign journalists.
These reporters went up to the Sierra Maestra, interviewed the rebel leaders and denied the versions spread by the dominant “big press.”
In addition to a long interview with Fidel Castro in English by the New York Times journalist, Herbert Mathews, Latin Americans also did it, such as the Argentine Jorge Ricardo Masetti, who expressed his experiences in the book Those who fight and those who cryand who was later the first director of Prensa Latina.
Also founder of the agency, the Uruguayan Carlos María Gutiérrez, author of the book In the Sierra Maestra and other reports, ran great risks without being detected by the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Ecuadorian journalist Carlos Bastidas Argüello, however, was assassinated after descending from the hills to Havana.
When the Revolution triumphed, with the escape of the dictator Batista and the surrender of his soldiers and repressors, hostile campaigns against the young Cuban political process increased, promoted, among others, by the Inter-American Press Association (SIP).
Major newspapers and magazines, including Life, Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report, as well as the AP and UPI, also participated.
In the first week of 1959, several young journalists arrived in Havana, such as the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and the Argentines Rodolfo Walsh and Rogelio García Lupo, among others, willing to collaborate in spreading the truth about Cuba.
During a quick visit to Venezuela in those days, Fidel Castro advanced the urgency of countering these misrepresentations and others about the new Latin American progressive movements.
Together with prominent Cuban journalists, such as Francisco V. Portela, the first correspondent for Prensa Latina in the United States —later harassed and arrested by the FBI— among several others, the Latin Americans began to structure the proposal.
On January 21 and 22, Fidel Castro summoned some 400 journalists in the so-called Operation Truth, also known at the time as the largest press conference in the world, and denounced the anti-Cuban campaign as “the most infamous, criminal, and unjust that has been launched against any people”.
He also stressed that “the American press should be in possession of means that allow it to know the truth and not be victims of lies.”
Considered the first information battle of the Revolution, the event was attended by professionals from 20 cities in the United States, as well as dozens of prominent Latin American reporters, from media such as the Washington Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, Miami News and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Likewise, the University of Toronto Press, from Canada; the Daily Mail, from the United Kingdom; the Jours de France, of France; El Nacional, Novedades and Excelsior, from Mexico; and El Mundo and El Imparcial, from Puerto Rico.
There, journalists were able to attend the public trials against war criminals and repressors and interview Fidel Castro, who insisted on the need for Latin America to have its own agency and offered his personal support for that initiative.
Many of the reporters who then wrote objectively about the Cuban reality saw their articles censored in their countries, while the anti-Cuban media war increased.
However, in less than five months, the Latin American Information Agency, Prensa Latina SA, was inaugurated and the US government, surprised, predicted only a month to live for her and launched all its aggression against her.
It was in this environment of threats that the founders and first correspondents worked, led by Masetti, to establish, in the first year alone, some 18 offices, especially in Latin America. Then, following that example, other alternative media would emerge in the region.
In the heroic history of Prensa Latina there were ups and downs over more than six decades, until today it has become a recognized multimedia center of international reference with almost 40 correspondents on five continents.
Taken from Latin Press
Cover photo: Jorge Ricardo Masetti and Che. Image taken from Prensa Latina
#broke #information #monopoly