Don’t be shocked by slanted media coverage of the anti-communism protests in Cuba. The Western liberal media are simply doing what they do best: concealing the crimes of cold-blooded communists.
In early July, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to voice their disdain for the political system in their country. The demonstrators had many grievances. Some were concerned about drastic food shortages and power outages. Others were horrified by the failing government healthcare system and the poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite their different backgrounds and occupations, they were firmly united by one simple vision.
They want freedom for Cuba.
Predictably, the liberal media saw things differently. First out of the gate was the New York Times. Just hours after the protests erupted across Cuba, the newspaper equated calls for “freedom” to “anti-government” rhetoric.
“Shouting ‘Freedom’ and other anti-government slogans, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years,” the newspaper tweeted.
Oh, these radical Cuban anarchists and their anti-government chants!
The following day, Portia Siegelbaum, a CBS News producer in Cuba, attempted to blame the United States government for Cuba’s deteriorating economy.
“The Trump administration passed many more regulations, many more sanctions against it, which basically has cut off all income coming into Cuba,” she said during the segment. Referring to President Joe Biden, Siegelbaum said the president “at least said at the beginning he was going to review this policy and make changes, but nothing has happened.”
Not to be outdone, Reuters then penned a headline more appropriate for the Onion, claiming that widespread public demonstrations “risk exacerbating COVID-19 spike” in the country. As if social distancing is somehow more important than mass starvation, political executions, and human rights violations.
Regrettably, the legacy media’s affinity for communist regimes is not a new phenomenon.
In 1932, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 13 articles that he wrote about the Soviet Union during the previous year. Almost every single one of Duranty’s articles, however, contained Soviet propaganda and disinformation.
When describing the horrific “liquidation” of millions of “kulaks” — upper-middle-class farmers who were arrested, sent to Gulags, or executed — Duranty reported that the Communist Party was merely attempting to strengthen the working class. “Must all of them and their families be physically abolished? Of course not – they must be ‘liquidated’ or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass,” he wrote in 1931.
In the immediate aftermath of the horrific famine in Ukraine that claimed around 3.5 million lives, Duranty continued to report that the suffering in the Soviet Union was largely exaggerated. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he asserted in 1933.
The New York Times continued to publish Duranty’s reporting until 1941. Prior to the 1980s, the newspaper never publicly admitted that Duranty’s work contained disinformation. And most stunning of all, Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize has never been revoked. Notably, Duranty was not the only Soviet apologist in the West. Other journalists and broadcasters have lied to people about the brutal reality of communism, desperate to portray mass murderers as virtuous leaders.
Former Voice of America editor Howard Fast, for instance, received the Stalin International Peace Prize in 1953. He proceeded to repeat Soviet propaganda slogans during his acceptance speech.
This pathetic whitewashing of communist crimes was received so well by the Kremlin that the regime often referred to Western journalists such as Duranty and Fast as “useful idiots.” It was right to do so.
It’s tempting to accuse the media of hypocrisy when it comes to the slanted coverage of Cuba. Unfortunately, the Western liberal press have been the most reliable champion of cruel communist regimes for the past 100 years. Useful idiots, welcome back.
Nikita Vladimirov (@nikvofficial) is a political strategist and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
