When fake news was deemed insufficient the media resorted to a schizophrenic McCarthyism: Cuba was a "point of infection by the Communist virus for the whole hemisphere" (New York Times, April 23, 1961 - a date right after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion).
As it to assert its thinking has not evolved, when Fidel Castro died the New York Times blamed him for 'bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere" and for "pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war." In fact, the US had brought the Cold War here at least by 1954 with its coup against Guatemala's Arbenz. The historical record shows that Cuba turned increasingly towards the Communist world only after the US drastically curtailed political and economic relations with Cuba. As mentioned above, the world was pushed to the brink of nuclear war by the aggressive actions by John Kennedy, not by Khrushchev or Castro.
The New York Times also referred to Cuba as "a dynastic police state" (p151).
The Washington Post on Fidel Castro's death called him "one of the most brutal dictators in modern history," an irrational statement that presumably places him in league with Hitler.
Like any foreign leader the US wants to eliminate, Fidel Castro was portrayed as a child, as mentally unbalanced. This helped to both justify US regime change and to avoid informing the US public on the reasons for Cuban anger at the US conduct towards Cuba since 1898. When journalists accurately reported on the Cuban experience, as did Herbert Matthews, he was "ostracized by his media colleagues as being a dupe of Castro and a communist sympathizer" (p.79). More respected were the likes of Tad Szulc who said Fidel was "an overgrown boy" (p.80).
Bolender repeatedly points out "that whenever there's something positive about Cuba, the media must follow its credo of injecting negative misinformation, no matter how preposterous the claim".It was intended to ensure the consumer maintains a negative opinion about Cuba, despite reading of its accomplishments" (pp.171-172). One example: a criticism of the new Cuban president by the New York Times, "Mr. Diaz-Canel, who became Cuba's new president on Thursday, the day before his 58th birthday, has spent his entire life in the service of a revolution he did not fight" (p. 180).
Corporate media reporting of anything negative about Cuba is an acceptable default position, with the underlying assumption being, before and after Obama's opening, that the Cuban system must change, guided by US benevolence.
US Disinformation on Cuba before 1959
Media propaganda against Cuba began long before the 1959 revolutionary victory. Bolender takes us back to the justifications for the 1898 US invasion and occupation. Cubans were portrayed as unkempt children unable to manage by themselves, needing Anglo-Saxon Uncle Sam to save Cubans from Spain and then from themselves by ruling their affairs for them.
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