Connect Cuba with Latin America from journalism

In 2014, what seemed like the end of an era of distance between Cuba and the United States seemed to have come with the apparent reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the government of Barack Obama and the then president of the island, Raúl Castro.

The meeting had one of its most significant moments in 2016, when Obama visited Cuba, promoting new airs of openness and hope, but also of extreme skepticism.

In a way, that moment represented on many levels an important turning point not only for the life and otherwise complex relationship between the two nations, but also for the political and democratic reformulation of Latin America.

This was the starting point of a critical and in-depth investigation for the Chilean journalist Patricio Fernández Chadwick, which took shape in the book Cuba: Journey to the End of the Revolution (Debate, 2018).

But it was a year before that during its process the idea of ​​a much broader and more ambitious project was born that would involve independent journalism on the island under the shelter of Espacio Público, an independent study center based in Chile.

This is how the Investigative Journalism in Cuba project arose, which for its 2020 edition had the participation of seven journalists from Cuba, two from Nicaragua and two from Venezuela, in addition to six mentors, of which one corresponded to Nicaragua and the other to Venezuela, the others to Cuba, in an online version due to the scenario derived from the pandemic.

Patricio Fernández, founder of the project and director of Espacio Público, dates back to 2017, when the Chilean journalist met a new generation of writers and journalists who were beginning to open media in the incipient field of independent journalism in Cuba.

“Parallel to this meeting, in Chile, Espacio Público was concerned with the issues of transparency, justice, anti-corruption and with the interest of expanding the radius of action of these problems.

We talked about this and decided to create the project as a kind of dialogue with this nascent Cuban journalism. "

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Patricio Fernández, former director of the fortnightly The Clinic and author of Ferrantes, Los Nenes, Cuba: Journey to the End of a Revolution and Notes About the Social Outbreak in Chile.

For Fernández, who lived closely one of the most recent moments of political inflection in Cuba, remembers that they were especially special days, in which certain airs of hope and change were experienced, something that historically it has been difficult for the people of Cuba to experience, but It is also highly contradictory, the same that was falling apart after Obama's departure and the subsequent rise of Donald Trump to power in the United States.

However, and in parallel with the development of the digital ecosystem in the world, the nature of critical questioning supported by investigative journalism has managed to advance, not without its vicissitudes, in projects such as the one started in 2017 by Espacio Público, which as of Today it has its most recent form in the book Investigative Journalism in Cuba: New Voices, New Stories, which in a certain way represents, in Fernández's words, necessary blood (freedom of expression and of the press) so that the heart of the democracy keep beating.

“The day after Obama's departure, everything changed.

On the one hand, it seemed that the regime felt that it had gotten out of hand in these open-minded spirits, and on the other, Donald Trump was elected, who made every effort to erase what Obama had done.

And suddenly everything returns to its normal course: clubs begin to close, flights disappear, tourism falls again and as if that were not enough, the pandemic arrives.

"And what remains is a kind of bureaucracy, like a church without faith, without that gerontocracy that at least came from that epic of the mountains, again tightening the neck of journalism and the new media that had begun to flourish are seen again restricted.

In this area, this project continues to breathe energy and enthusiasm into the desire to tell what is happening in Cuba, in the freest way possible. "

Sven Creutzmann / Mambo Photo / Getty Images

Beyond journalism

For Patricio Fernández, beyond intelligence and the most experienced trade within investigative journalism, the official environment in Cuba is a prominently closed space, which is why the embryo of this profession has had to make use of much more narrative and initiation to continue transmitting to the world what happens on the island.

"We would have to think that in recent decades, there has really been no journalism in Cuba, but what has transmuted reality is literature, and somehow getting closer to telling what happens in Cuba comes largely from there .

And there we approach investigative journalism, based on the story, dengue, tobacco, the reality of schools, communications;

you go into those other mysteries that it would be good to be transparent and that all democracy requires, through your investigative journalism ”.

As a vital space for dialogue between Cuba and Latin America from investigative journalism, the project articulated by Espacio Público today begins to open up the possibility of things that can be found out, which opens new circuits full of vitality, says the founder of the draft.

Conceived as an important discussion space for the proper functioning of democracy, Investigative Journalism in Cuba: New Voices, New Stories is available to all the public in digital format, free of charge on the Espacio Público site.