Profile of U.S.

Press Coverage of Cuba

Author(s): Flora Biancalana and Cecilia O'Leary
Source: Social Justice, Vol. 15, No. 2 (32), HUMAN RIGHTS & U.S.-CUBAN RELATIONS IN THE
REAGAN ERA (Summer 1988), pp. 63-71
Published by: Social Justice/Global Options
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29766408
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Profile of U.S.
Press Coverage

of Cuba

Flora Biancalana

and Cecilia

O'Leary

following profile of U.S. press coverage of Cuba resulted from the

systematic monitoring of nine newspapers and eight periodicals in
?
the Christian Science
1986.1 These newspapers and periodicals
Monitor, Journal of Commerce, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, New York
Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Post,
Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, Harpers, Newsweek,
were se?
New York Review of Books, Time, and U.S. News & World Report ?
a
lected to represent national, regional, and local coverage, as well as range of
established political and business interests. (See below for a full description of
ourmethodology.)

The

In our survey of 1986 press coverage, we found 331 items about Cuba.
Most of the coverage was news stories (72.6%), with the remainder divided
between opinions, editorials, book reviews and letters (see Figure 4 at the end
of this article). There was considerable variation in the amount of coverage
between publications (see Figure 1). The Miami Herald, with its proximity to
Cuba and large Cuban-American constituency, had themost coverage of Cuba
(152 items or 45.9% of the total). After theNew York Times (71 items or
21.5%), coverage in all other newspapers and periodicals was sporadic and
minimal (each had 25 or fewer items). National periodicals and weekly news
journals had almost no articles about Cuba in 1986 (see Figure 1 and Table 1).
The fact that therewas so little coverage of Cuba makes the kind of coverage
all themore important.
We have divided the 1986 coverage into 20 topics. Since some articles
covered more thanone topic,we found 396 topics in the 331 items (see Tables
1 and 3). As seen in Figure 2, the topics emphasized were human rights,

Cuban-Americans, Cuba's foreign policy and economy, U.S. policy towards

Cuba, Fidel Castro, and immigration. There was minimal coverage of issues
which Cuba thinks are important, such as health, the arts, education, race rela?
tions, status of women, youth, etc. Each of these topics had less than 2% of the
1986 coverage. The exception to this general trendwas religion which, given

are members
O'LEARY
and CECILIA
BIANCALANA
FLORA
Cuba Project," P.O. Box 40601, San Francisco, CA 94140.

SOCIAL JUSTICE Vol. 15,No. 2

of Global

Options'

63

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"U.S.?

64

BlANCALANA

AND O'LEARY

the controversies surrounding Cuba's

improving relations with the Catholic
Church, received close to 4% of the 1986 coverage.
In general, though, the press focused on issues related toU.S. foreign pol?
icy concerns. For example, the issue of "human rights" in Cuba received 77
items,while coverage of the horrendous conditions under which thousands of
Cuban-Americans were imprisoned in theU.S. was to be found in only nine
items in the press (see Table 1). (Massive coverage of U.S. prison conditions
did not occur until Cuban prisoners rioted in 1987.) This bias in the selectivity
of reportingwas also echoed in thewording of headlines.2 The focus on nega?

tive news about Cuba was most apparent in theMiami Herald, whose 152
items in 1986 included 32 on "human rights" abuses, 26 on the need for tough
U.S. policies against Cuba, and 24 on various crises and disasters inCuba (see

Table 2).
Based on a content analysis of underlying assumptions, we also sorted the
data by theme (see Tables 2 and 4, Figure 3): 14.5% reported on various as?
pects of failures, problems, and inadequacies of Cuba's socialist system ("Bad
News Is Good News");
10% described improved internal and international re?
lations, technical advancements, and general social progress, but only 2.4% of
these items were explicitly positive about Cuba ("Good News Is Ignored");
6% reported on Cuba's economic, political, ormilitary dependency on the So?
viet Union ("Soviet Colony"); 6.3% focused on Fidel Castro's relationship to
Cuba and theCuban party ("One-Man/One Rule"); 8.2% reported on various

aspects of Cuba's military and political relations with Third World countries
19.6% catalogued in great detail "human rights"
("Exporting Revolution");
abuses in Cuba ("Cuba as Prison"); 8.2% reported on people's attempts to
leave Cuba ("Fleeing to Freedom"); 3.9% described the imprisonment and
12.7% reported
other problems of Cubans in theU.S. ("Unfree in theU.S.");
on tough U.S. policies towards Cuba ("Hard Line"); 4.2% reported on efforts
to normalize relations with Cuba ("Normal Relations"); and 6.3% covered a

variety of other insignificant issues.

and Platt (1988), this
As is discussed fully in the article by McCaughan
survey indicates that the 1986 press coverage of Cuba was highly selective,
generally negative, andWesterncentric.3 The issues covered typically reflected
the interests of official U.S. foreign policy, ignored Cuba's concerns, and ne?
glected issues of likely interest to theU.S. public, such as health care, job se?
curity, education, and quality of life.

A Note on Methodology
With the exception of the San Francisco newspapers, the newspaper items
primarily came from a clipping service provided by Information Services on
Latin America (ISLA), which is based inOakland, California. Their 1986 cov?
erage of Cuba was supplemented by clippings available at Global Options, San

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U.S. Press Coverage

of Cuba

65

Francisco, and theData Center, Oakland. In addition, given our location, we

also surveyed San Francisco's two major daily newspapers (which we com?
bine as one data source). The search of the eight periodicals was based on
items listed in theReaders' Guide to Periodical Literature 1986 and a search
of files at the Data Center, Oakland, and Global Options, San Francisco.
(While it is quite likely thatwe missed several items about Cuba in these
newspapers and periodicals, our search was systematic and representative of
press coverage in 1986.)
A computerized data base was then created, in which we entered the fol?
(news story,
lowing data: Publication, Date, Author, Headline, Coverage
opinion, editorial, letter),Topic, Theme, and Summary (of contents). The top?
ics were based on descriptive categories and the preponderant focus of each
item. In cases where more than one topic was covered, we noted this; thus, the
number of topics (396) exceeds the number of items (331).
The "themes" were developed in the course of a content analysis of the
data, of key terms and phrases, and of ideological comments within the press
coverage. The themes are analytical categories thatcut across topics; they re?
flect our qualitative interpretation (McCaughan and Platt, 1988), as well as

quantitative summary of the data. Most of the themes identify the different
ways in which the press communicates hostile judgments or assumptions
about Cuba. In order to guard against bias, we also carefully searched for
items that reflected neutral or positive images of Cuba. These are discussed in
the "Good

McCaughan

News
is Ignored" and "Normal Relations"
and Platt article (1988).

sections of

the

NOTES
1. A complete summary, sort, and analysis of all the data used in this and the following arti?
cle can be found in a research report, Tropical Gulag: The Construction of Cold War Images of
Cuba in theUnited States, available for $15.50 (including postage) from Global Options, P.O. Box
40601, San Francisco, California, 94140. Copies of the original newspaper and periodical
as well as the computerized data base, are also available at Global Options.
2. A listing of all headlines is also available inTropical Gulag (see footnote 1).
3.

The

summarized

qualitative analysis by McCaughan

in this article.

and Platt (1988)

stories,

is based on the same data base

REFERENCES
McCaughan,
1988
Platt, Tony
1987

Ed and Tony Platt

"Tropical Gulag: Media

(ed.)

Images of Cuba,"

Social

Tropical Gulag: The Construction of Cold War

States. San Francisco: Global Options.

Justice 15,2.
Images of Cuba

in theUnited

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BlANCALANA

66

AND O'LEARY

Table 1:
Number and Percentage of Newspaper and Periodical
Items on Cuba by Topic in 1986 U.S. Press
Topic
CS1 JC2 LA3MH4 NY5 SF6WP7 WS8 PR9 Total

Topics
Cuban Americans

31

Foreign Policy

23

3
1

18

Immigration and Travel

46
44

Military

Radio Marti/Communications

35
1

20

Human Rights
Cuban Prisoners
U.S.

in theU.S.

Policy Toward

5
16

17

Cuba

Economy

13

Castro and the Party

16

Health

3
4
2
4

10

Religion
Arts

Youth

1
3

Overview
Blacks

Sports
Environment
Education

24 185 87

Totals
1. CS = Christian Science Monitor
2. JC = Journal of Commerce
3. LA = Los Angeles Times
4. MH = Miami Herald

5. NY

8. WS

there are 331

items on Cuba,

36
5
14

9.1

77

19.4

1.3
3.5

2.3

43
32
38
5
15
2
2
11

10.9

0.5

8.1
9.6
1.3
3.8
0.5
0.5
2.8

29

23

14 396

1.5
0.8
1.3
0.3

100.0

= New York Times

=

Chronicle/Examiner
Post

Washington
= Wall Street Journal

9. PR = Summary of eight periodicals

Note: Although

22

6. SF = San Francisco
7. WP

11.6
11.1

6
3
5
1

Nuclear

% of
Total

(see Table

some covered more

3 for list)
than one topic. Therefore,

number of topics, 396, is greater than the total of items on Cuba.

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the

U.S. Press Coverage

Number

of Cuba

67

Table 2:
and Percentage ofNewspaper and Periodical
On Cuba by Theme in 1986 U.S. Press

Items

Theme
Themes
CS1 JC2LA3MH4 NY5 SF6WP7 WS8 PR9 Total
Bad News

24

Is Good News

Good News

Is Ignored

Soviet Colony
One-Rule

One-Man,

48

14.5
10.0

33
20
21

16

% of
Total

6.0
6.3

Exporting Revolution

15

27

8.2

Cuba as Prison

32

14

65
27

19.6

Fleeing

toFreedom

UnfreeintheU.S.

10

26
2

Hard Line
Normal Relations

15

No Theme Assigned

Totals

10
5
2

19 152 71

21

25

18

8.2

13
42
14

12.7

21

6.3

14 331

3.9

4.2

100.0

1. CS = Christian Science Monitor

2. JC = Journal of Commerce
3. LA = Los Angeles Times
4. MH = Miami Herald
5. NY = New York Times
6. SF = San Francisco
7. WP=
8. WS

Washington

Chronicle

& Examiner

Post

= Wall Street Journal

9. PR = Summary of eight periodicals

(see Table

4 for list)

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68

AND O'LEARY

BIANCALANA
Table 3:
Number and Percentage of Periodical Items
On Cuba by Topic in 1986 U.S. Press

Theme
BW1 FR2 FT3 HR4NW5 NY6 TM7 US8 Total

Themes
Cuban Americans

Foreign Policy
1

Immigration and Travel

Military
Radio Martf/Communications

1111

Human Rights
Cuban Prisoners
U.S.

in theU.S.

Policy Towards

Cuba

Economy

% of
Total
28.6

0
1

0.0

0.0

0
4

28.6

7.1

0.0

0
1

0.0
7.1

14.3

Overview

0
0
0
0
0
2

14.3

Blacks

0.0

Nuclear

0
0
0
0

0.0

14

100.0

Castro and Party

Health
Religion
Arts
Youth

Sports
Environment
Education

1111

Totals

0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0

0.0
0.0
0.0

1. BW = Business Week
2. FR = Forbes
3. FT = Fortune
=
Harpers
5. NW = Newsweek

4. HR

6. NY

= New York Review

of Books

7. TM = Time
8. US = U.S. News

and World Report

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U.S. Press Coverage

69

of Cuba

Table 4:
and Percentage of Periodical Items
On Cuba by Theme in 1986 U.S. Press

Number

Theme
BW3 FR2 FT3 HR4NW5 NY6 TM7 US8 Total

Themes
Bad News

Is Good News

Good News

Is Ignored

Soviet Colony
One-Rule

One-Man,

3
0
0
0

% of
Total
21.4
0.0
0.0
0.0

Exporting Revolution

0.0

Cuba as Prison

5
2

35.7

3
0

21.4

0
1

0.0

Fleeing

toFreedom

UnfreeintheU.S.
Hard Line
Normal Relations

Other(NoTheme)
1

Totals

14

14.3

0.0

7.1
100.0

1. BW = Business Week
2. FR = Forbes
3. FT = Fortune
4. HR = Harpers
5. NW = Newsweek
6. NY

= New York Review

of Books

1. TM = Time
8. US = US. News

and World Report

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BlANCALANA

70

Figure 2:1986

Coverage

of Cuba

AND O'LEARY

by Topic
(2.8%)

(10.9%)

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U.S. Press Coverage

Figure 3:1986

of Cuba

Coverage

of Cuba

71
by Theme

News Story

(72.6%)

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