Trump did what Castroos could not: Radio Radio Marti on the air

The journalists from Radio Marti, a news port of the American Federation targeting the Communist Cuba, were in the middle of an interview with a Cuban activist in Miami on the last Saturday when a dark look suddenly came to their faces.

The crew learned in an e -mail that the 40 -year -old news agency, designed to send non -controlled news in Spanish to Cuba, was just closed by the Trump administration. Activist file – Ramon Sewel Sanchez, known for the leadership leadership in Cuba – has been canceled.

Mr. Sanchez said: “They were confused,” said Mr. Sanchez. They said, “We think we have been terminated. We need to leave. ”

President Trump did in a flash unless the Castro brothers in Cuba could have done four decades ago: He took a news station that has long been angry with the Communist regime.

Radio Marti has become the latest among dozens of programs and agencies in the United States government to reduce the massive costs by Mr. Trump and his advisor Ilon Musk.

For years, the broadcaster has been reputable as ancient residue of the Cold War, which is the enlarged Boondogge where political influential people found jobs for their relatives.

Tens of millions of dollars annually spent the production of what is unilateral and right -wing critics against the Cuban government, and it was overwhelmed and repeatedly drowned in press scandals and corruption that was the focus of Congress reports.

Its television station, TV Martí, was so banned on the island that it was called “No See TV”.

But in recent years, it was a smaller process with a group of new recruits in the framework of a new administration that achieves serious steps on social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as the agency’s data appears.

After the budget discounts by the first Trump administration to reduce and finance its employees by about 40 percent, veteran and direct journalists were appointed to renew the newsroom for the digital era.

With the publication of short videos on the Internet, Radio Martí was attracting millions of readers and viewers annually, as network data appears, just as Cuba underwent the largest mass migration in its history, which suffered from the power outages for days and an economic crisis, unlike anything that was seen decades ago.

But the question remains: With Cuba breaking the opposition and imprisoning its citizens for critical Facebook posts, and with the nation facing the most difficult period in 66 years in the shadow of communism, did Radio Marti put the last broadcast?

“The site was banned in Cuba. The TV signal was banned, and the radio signal was banned,” said Abel Fernandez, director of social media at the port, who lost his job last week. “But people reach the content on social media. What we do is important, and this concerns people.”

Mario Diaz Palart, one of the three Cuban American members in Congress, He said Telemundo He will work with Mr. Trump to restore Marti.

When asked if Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, an American Kobe, supported the broadcaster, the Foreign Ministry said that the president had been elected to make difficult decisions, and “the situation is still complicated by means.”

As an American Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio was among a group of two parties from the two parties The message was signed 2022 Requesting “through justification” to lay off the planned workers.

The White House rejected the interview requests with Carrie Lake, who oversees the dismantling of the US Agency for the World Media, which includes Radio Marti.

Mauricio Claver Caron, President of President Trump in Latin America, said he believed that some of the manifestations of Radio Marti will be rescued.

He said: “I think you can appreciate the historical importance of something and the role it plays with the realization that it must be updated towards the world in which we live – is no longer the eighties anymore, in the nineties, or even the early first decade of the twentieth century.” “We can look at this as the Great Reset Marti.”

In 1983, Ronald Reagan Radio Marti created, at the height of the Cold War, the prominent Cuban exile leader, George Mass Kanosa. It was supposed to penetrate the oversight on the island, as the media would be tightly controlled by the government and independent journalists, which generally end up in prison or exile.

He went in the air in 1985, and later expanded to TV. But recently 2019, a Internal audit Commissioned by the American Agency to the World Media, it said that she produced “bad press” and “ineffective propaganda.”

The review came months after a wide -scale criticism calls for billionaire George Soros “an unqualified Jew of flexible ethics” that led to the release of many journalists. Another official was arrested asking for more than $ 35,000 at expenditures.

Castro Prades’ detector programming Marti, and former President Raul Castro demanded that she be removed from the air. He said in 2015: “The United States maintains harmful programs for Cuban sovereignty, such as projects to enhance changes in our political, economic and social system,” after 2015, after President Obama has natched relations between the two countries.

When the Internet became widely available in Cuba, critics asked whether Marti was necessary.

But Marti had a discrimination that distinguishes her from other pro -democracy stations such as Voice of America and Radio Free EUROPE, which was silenced last week: the dictatorship that aims in power remains.

“Radio Marti was designed for a different period in the eighties of the last century in the battle of Reagan against the Soviet Union and Communism, but the truth is that Cuba has never moved, and we are now living in a digital world,” said Ted Henkin, Professor of Barush College, who studies the media scene in Cuba. “Marti had to re -invent himself three or four times.”

After many tremors and scandals, Mr. Henkin said that the operation, which he visited recently, appears smaller and more professional. The TV station was canceled, although its annual budget was set at $ 25 million, but it was spending $ 17 million, according to many employees who were not allowed to speak publicly.

In the past two years, the masses began to rise. According to Tubular Labs, a video analysis company, with six months remaining in the fiscal year, Martí has ​​already doubled its viewing with 14 million views on YouTube so far in this fiscal year, and another 84 million people on Facebook, where there are more than a million followers. The editors said that about 80 percent of their fans are in Cuba.

Mario J. Benton, a Cuban journalist who moved to the United States a decade ago and began working in Marti a year ago, that his contract would end this month. He said he is proud of the work that the director did, especially in informing the public of approaching hurricanes during times of the massive power outage, which even limited the Cuban government’s ability to issue storms.

Marti won eight Amy Awards.

“I think he has a future, because I think the task is more important than ever,” said Mr. Benton. “Cuba passes the worst crisis, and in the middle of this crisis, a catastrophe that only the information is a disaster.”

The best news editor in Marti said they are not authorized to speak publicly about the Trump administration discounts.

Mrs. Lake, a former TV journalist chosen by Mr. Trump as a special advisor to United States Agency for World MediaLast week, the corrupt agency called for a heart. On X, I suggested that the employees examine their emails.

Soon, the employees received emails saying they were on paid administrative leave until further notice, then they were closed from their email accounts. The new employees who were under observation have already received the terminals, and journalists who were in the contract were also left.

Although she did not provide any examples, Lady Lake said In a press release, “huge violations of national security, including spies, sympathizers with terrorists, and/or supporters who infiltrate the agency.”

She added that “waste, fraud and ill -treatment are spread in this agency, and American taxpayers should not have to finance it.

Maria Abdel Qafla contributed to the reports.