DTop
Active member
I heard about this story on the radio today and looked it up on the Times Watch web site. I thought I'd share what I found. It's amazing to me coming from a paper of the proported stature of the New York Times. What do you think?
"Wednesday's front-page story on anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami by Abby Goodnough, "Florida's Zeal Against Castro Is Losing Heat," shows how the paper loses its respect for aggrieved minority groups when they trend Republican: "But if Mr. Castro's grip on Cuban Miami remains strong, the fixation is expressed differently these days. The monolithic stridency that once defined the exile community has faded. There is less consensus on how to fight Mr. Castro and even, as Cuban-Americans grow more politically and economically diverse, less intensity of purpose."
Goodnough stacks the deck with unflattering anecdotes about the Cuban-Americans, including one that appears to hailfrom 1992: "In the past, Cuban-Americans boycotted The Herald and smeared feces on its vending boxes to protest what they considered pro-Castro coverage. This city where raucous demonstrations by exiles were once as regular as summer storms has seen few lately. One theory is that the people whose life's mission was to defeat Mr. Castro and return to the island one day -- those who fled here in the early years of his taking power -- have grown old and weary."
Goodnough gives backhanded praise to a less "belligerent" exile group while dredging up more unflattering images: "The subtler approach is gaining favor. Cuban-Americans have grown more politically aware since the Elián González episode, many say, when their fervor to thwart the Clinton administration and the boy's return to his father in Cuba drew national contempt. Americans who had paid little attention to the policy debate over Cuba tended to support sending Elián home, polls showed, and were put off by images of exiles blocking traffic and flying American flags upside down in protest. 'Elián González was a great lesson, a brutal lesson,' said Joe Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban-American National Foundation, a once belligerent but now more measured exile group."
During the battle over sending immigrant Elian Gonzalez back to his father in Communist Cuba, a Times editorial from April 14, 2000 showed an atypical lack of respect for mass protests of minority groups, calling up unflattering images of foreigners the paper's liberal editors generally avoid like the plague: "The relatives, and the hundreds of supporters who daily encircle the great-uncle's home to shield the boy, make it look as if South-Florida's Cuban-Americans believe in mob rule."
SOURCE
"Wednesday's front-page story on anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami by Abby Goodnough, "Florida's Zeal Against Castro Is Losing Heat," shows how the paper loses its respect for aggrieved minority groups when they trend Republican: "But if Mr. Castro's grip on Cuban Miami remains strong, the fixation is expressed differently these days. The monolithic stridency that once defined the exile community has faded. There is less consensus on how to fight Mr. Castro and even, as Cuban-Americans grow more politically and economically diverse, less intensity of purpose."
Goodnough stacks the deck with unflattering anecdotes about the Cuban-Americans, including one that appears to hailfrom 1992: "In the past, Cuban-Americans boycotted The Herald and smeared feces on its vending boxes to protest what they considered pro-Castro coverage. This city where raucous demonstrations by exiles were once as regular as summer storms has seen few lately. One theory is that the people whose life's mission was to defeat Mr. Castro and return to the island one day -- those who fled here in the early years of his taking power -- have grown old and weary."
Goodnough gives backhanded praise to a less "belligerent" exile group while dredging up more unflattering images: "The subtler approach is gaining favor. Cuban-Americans have grown more politically aware since the Elián González episode, many say, when their fervor to thwart the Clinton administration and the boy's return to his father in Cuba drew national contempt. Americans who had paid little attention to the policy debate over Cuba tended to support sending Elián home, polls showed, and were put off by images of exiles blocking traffic and flying American flags upside down in protest. 'Elián González was a great lesson, a brutal lesson,' said Joe Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban-American National Foundation, a once belligerent but now more measured exile group."
During the battle over sending immigrant Elian Gonzalez back to his father in Communist Cuba, a Times editorial from April 14, 2000 showed an atypical lack of respect for mass protests of minority groups, calling up unflattering images of foreigners the paper's liberal editors generally avoid like the plague: "The relatives, and the hundreds of supporters who daily encircle the great-uncle's home to shield the boy, make it look as if South-Florida's Cuban-Americans believe in mob rule."
SOURCE
