Two News Stories, One Focus

Two News Stories, One Focus / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on August 7, 2013

Recently I have been reading an excellent book by Carlos Salas,
currently the director of the site lainformacion.com. One of those texts
essential for any newsroom and for the library of every reporter. With
the title, "Manual para escribir como un periodista" (Manual on How to
Write Like a Journalist), in its pages he dissects the art of writing
headlines, the skills of a good interviewer and the need for research as
a prelude at any article. This professional who has devoted decades to
narrating reality gives us an agile volume where he shares the knowledge
others keep only for themselves.

Wearing my "Salas glasses," I began a meticulous analysis of the
accuracy with which the official media reports the news. I did not have
long to wait for the first inconsistency and deficiencies to spring into
view.

Throughout the week, the news media reported on the unfortunate story of
a group of people poisoned by methyl alcohol. A party in a proletarian
neighborhood in Havana that ended in tragedy. Eleven dead and dozens of
people affected by ingesting this dangerous substance, it was a sad
sequence of lack of control, contraband, the black market, economic
precariousness and irresponsibility.

Drama is an inseparable companion of journalism, as those of us who
exercise this profession know well. But in the midst of tragedy, we must
maintain the ability to discern why the national media treats certain
events as so significant, while other news is simply completely silenced.

Almost on a par with the drama of those poisoned by methyl alcohol, was
an accident during a Children's Carnival in Guantanamo. The bleachers
gave way and several children were injured, one of them with head
trauma. The confusion, chaos and terror that must have resulted from the
collapse of this structure in the middle of a celebration are obvious.
Why wasn't such an incident reported both on television and in
newspapers across the country? Because in the case of a product stolen
from a warehouse and consumed in secret it was citizens who acted
illegally? Who bears the responsibility for a badly constructed
grandstand at a public event? The State, that omni-proprietor, that
judge of everyone… judged by few.

The news of those who died from methyl alcohol is meant to hold the
victims up as examples of people who had fallen into such circumstances
by violating established norms or because they suffered from an
uncontrollable addiction. They always try to put responsibility on the
people. The fact that, in a country with a tradition of producing rum,
many prefer to buy their beverages on the black market, says more about
our national penury than it does about vice. Nevertheless, the official
moral was summed up as: This is what happens to the unscrupulous and to
drinkers. The victims are doubly victimized.

But in the incident of the bleachers collapse, where children and adults
were injured, the official journalists could not assign guilt to the
injured. Inevitably, they would have to relate the shoddy work of the
state enterprise that built the structure, without any consideration for
safety. Or instead, confess that a good part of the materials for the
job were embezzled, which presumably caused its weakening and subsequent
collapse.

Both episodes, unfortunate and avoidable, point to a widespread and
chronic problem in our reality: the need to steal and divert resources
to survive. Thus, poverty wages and economic insecurity are the direct
cause of these two tragedies. The culprits are not only sellers of
illegal alcohol and the workers who take home some screws or pieces of
wood, but also the order of things that turns us into criminals to survive.

7 August 2013

Source: "Two News Stories, One Focus / Yoani Sanchez | Translating Cuba"
- http://translatingcuba.com/two-news-stories-one-focus-yoani-sanchez/