Jesus Diaz Jr., the publisher of the Miami Herald responsible for firing two journalists in the recent Cuba Broadcasting scandal, has resigned.
His resignation follows the re-hire of the two journalists that were fired.
Wow! What a change of fortune!
Apparently Diaz and his colleagues at the Herald have spent the past few weeks investigating the two journalists who worked for Radio and TV Marti (the government sponsored anti-Castro broadcasting networks). Whatever they discovered seems to have had some unexpected consequences. What the hell happened down there?
The basic facts:
On Tuesday, two of the three fired El Nuevo Herald reporters, Pablo Alfonso and Wilfredo Cancio Isla, accepted offers to return to work, with back pay. The third, freelance reporter Olga Connor, is in Spain.
Alfonso and Cancio Isla, who agreed to no longer accept money from the U.S. government-run broadcasters, were enthusiastic about their reinstatements, Herald general counsel Robert Beatty said.
Cancio referred calls to his lawyer but told The Associated Press, ``This opens a chapter for an honest discussion over the values of Hispanic journalism.''
Diaz also revealed Tuesday that six other employees of El Nuevo Herald had received payments. The company granted all amnesty.
Top Miami Herald and McClatchy executives announced a new policy that no journalists in the future will accept pay for appearances on government-sponsored media. They also sought to counter the perception that they caved to pressure from some in the Cuban exile community and from the cancellation of more than 1,900 subscription
Just few weeks ago Diaz said:
'Even the appearance that your objectivity or integrity might have been impaired is something we can't condone, not in our business,'' DÃaz said. ``I personally don't believe that integrity and objectivity can be assured if any of our reporters receive monetary compensation from any entity that he or she may cover or have covered, but particularly if it's a government agency.''
Yesterday:
"I realize and regret that the events of the past three weeks have created an environment that no longer allows me to lead our newspapers in a manner most beneficial for our newspapers, our readers and our community."
The Miami Herald has now established clear rules prohibiting journalists in its employ from simultaneously working for government broadcasting agencies.
Diaz still asserts that the journalists' actions were a breach of ethics, but he concedes that the rules regarding this were ambiguous and inconsistent.
According to the internal investigation, it seems that several of the newly implicated journalists were in fact permitted to work for Radio and TV Marti by Miami Herald management way back in 2002.
There is a contradiction here. If several of these journalists were permitted to work for Radio and TV Marti in 2002, how is this work a "breach of widely accepted principles of journalistic ethics", as Mr. Diaz put it? Even if they weren't the same journalists in both cases, isn't it safe to assume that the rules governing one journalist working for the Miami Herald, probably go for the others? Maybe not, but if there's a distinction it's pretty fuzzy.
Critics of these fired/rehired journalists have tended to portray their offense as taking bribes from the Bush administration to support its programs. But is this really what they did? Is it a venal crime if you truly believe the words you are being paid to say?
Manuel A. Tellechea (not verified) @ October 5, 2006 - 12:36am
I have always been amazed by the great facility with which reporters on National Public Radio move in and out of the public and private sectors. One day they are spewing venom against Bush on NPR and the next day they don the guise of objective reporters to excoriate Bush again in the corporate media. I do not see that their position is any different from that of the fired/rehired Miami Herald reporters. Yet they are certainly not treated in the same way by the media mavens (the self-appointed guardians of the purity of the pig sty). In fact, there is only one difference between them: the NPR reporters bash Bush and the Miami journalists bash Castro. Apparently, it is acceptable to be paid to bash Bush, but not acceptable to be paid to bash Castro.
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