An executive order from President Donald Trump, targeting the US Agency for Global Media (Usagm) to “continue the reduction of the federal bureaucracy”, directly impacted Radio and TV Martí.
Its journalists, according to various press reports, simply received an email informing them that they were on administrative leave.
The order sought to “reduce the performance of its statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum required by law” and included six other federal agencies.
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute of Museums and Libraries entered the exchange. Also the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund; and the Minority Business Development Agency.
So, in addition to being out of work, several full-time employees and contractors at the Miami Marti stations were told that they would not be able to enter Usagm facilities.
In its radio war against Cuba in the 1980s, the misnamed Radio and TV Martí were founded in 1985 and 1990 respectively.
An independent audit by an Usagm-led panel of US experts of OCB said in February 2019 that both anti-Cuban media outlets produced ‘bad journalism’ and ‘ineffective propaganda’.
At the time, the experts accused the journalism on OCB (radio, television and website) of being biased, not providing context and being ‘old-style propaganda, constant hammering’, the panel chair concluded. Opinions on social media are mixed. Some of them point out that the Trump administration has already cut funding to the so-called independent media subsidised by programmes of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
A South Florida influencer said on her Instagram channel that “without a doubt this is yet another gift that Daddy Trump has given to the Cuban-American community that supported him and voted for him (…) first he took away federal funds from the exile organisations that promoted his campaign (…) now they are completely cutting off Radio and TV Martí (…) which was mostly a den of Republicans who supported Donald Trump”.
She added that with these moves, the president is going against those who voted for him in that part of the country. PL
(Translated by Cristina Popa – Email: gcpopa83@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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