{"id":188737,"date":"2018-11-01T22:22:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T02:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=188737"},"modified":"2018-11-01T22:22:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T02:22:30","slug":"the-radio-and-tv-marti-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/the-radio-and-tv-marti-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radio and TV Mart\u00ed scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government-financed Radio and TV Mart\u00ed, created to broadcast propaganda to Cuba, is under a federal government investigation for apparently having violated the ethics of journalistic content by broadcasting a program where businessman and philanthropist George Soros is referred to as \u201ca multimillionaire Jew of Hungarian origin whose fortune is estimated at eight billion dollars\u201d and, in addition, presented him as \u201ca non-believer Jew\u201d and \u201chaving a flexible morality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The program, which was aired in May, sustains that the businessman has devoted himself to influencing several democratic countries through the Open Society Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, 88-year-old Soros has been accused without proof by conservative commentators and analysists of financing the caravan of immigrants and refugees headed for the southern U.S. border through Central America. The also financier is generally presented by the extreme right as being responsible for the financial crises in the western world, especially the 2008 crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week the Hungarian conservative government canceled the operations permit of the Central European University founded by Soros after the fall of the Berlin Wall to promote the transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe. Although Soros has become a Nemesis of conservative and extreme right movements, he was one of the principal supporters of Soviet ex-President Mikhail Gorbachev during the Soviet Union\u2019s deathblows. <\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s unusual for the TV feature report is that <\/span>TV Mart\u00ed<\/span><\/i> cited as source the conservative organization Judicial Watch, well-known for its conservative position and very critical of the Cuban government. \u201cGeorge Soros has his eye on Latin America. But Judicial Watch, a U.S. legal research group, also has its sights set on Soros and what it sees as his lethal influence to destroy democracies. It describes him as a U.S. investor and speculator on the stock exchange market who exploits capitalism and Wall Street with the aim of financing the anti-system movements that fill his pockets,\u201d the story affirms.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in the program no one from Judicial Watch seems to defend that idea on the screen. This is precisely what has most caught the attention of Phil Peters, director of the Cuban Research Center, based in Arlington, Virginia, and who brought to light the issue early this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the program\u2019s strange things is that they mentioned several times Judicial Watch but they presented no one. It\u2019s curious that it be presented as a source and that it\u2019s not known who said that there,\u201d Peters affirmed to <\/span>OnCuba<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Radio and TV Mart\u00ed, which is under the control of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), supposedly maintains a balanced position in its news services. Given the complaints of several observers of the Cuban reality, seconded by Senator Jeff Flake, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which manages Radio and TV Mart\u00ed as well as the other U.S. propaganda stations, has decided to provisionally suspend the authors of the story after the video was taken out of its website, sources from the station confirmed to <\/span>OnCuba<\/b>. Meanwhile, an investigation on this, ordered by its director, John Lansing, has been initiated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The feature on Soros \u201cis incompatible with our professional and ethical requisite,\u201d the official of the Donald Trump administration highlighted in a communique.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most sensitive question about the program is that it has been accused of propagating an anti-Semite sentiment, which has led Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) to write a Twit on Saturday on his account saying that the most serious aspect is that \u201ca TV Marti program that was introduced with the phrase, \u2018George Soros, a multimillionaire Jew,\u2019 was paid for by the American taxpayer, and broadcast to Latin America last summer, in our name. This is taxpayer-funded anti-Semitism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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A TV Marti program that was introduced with the phrase, \u201cGeorge Soros, a multimillionaire Jew,\u201d was paid for by the American taxpayer, and broadcast to Latin America last summer, in our name. This is taxpayer-funded anti-semitism.<\/p>\n

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) October 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n