CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Contracts Reveal Miami Journalists on the U.S. Government Payroll.

By Xelcis Presno
UNITED STATES, May 9, 2011.- A multi-year effort by the US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the US Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Liberation newspaper has uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased materials that reveal that the U.S. government was paying Miami-based journalists who saturated the Miami media with reports that were highly inflammatory and prejudicial to the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters during their trial in that US city.

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibits the U.S. government from funding activities to influence and propagandize domestic public opinion.

More than 2,200 pages of contracts between Miami journalists and Radio and TV Martí have been released thus far to Liberation newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors -an official U.S. government agency- and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting have operated Radio Martí since 1985 and TV Martí since 1990.

The U.S. government has funneled nearly half a billion dollars into the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami. With an annual budget nearing $35 million, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Broadcasting Board of Governors put on their payroll domestic journalists to broadcast the same message inside and outside the United States on Cuba-related issues, effectively violating the law against domestic dissemination of U.S. propaganda.

These contracts evidence the U.S. government's payments to journalists in Miami whose reports constituted a sustained effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria and bias against Cuba and the Cuban Five. (Cubaminrex-RHC)

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