In a recent endeavor to distort the truth and mislead viewers, the Cuban National Television News (NTV) aired an extensive report featuring the experiences of Cuban expatriates in the United States. These individuals claimed to live in fear due to immigration raids, police brutality, and the challenges of legalizing their status.
This supposed display of empathy was, in reality, an attempt to reinforce the regime's long-standing propaganda: life outside Cuba is a nightmare for its emigrants, and the "American Dream" is nothing but a myth.
Presented as a humanitarian concern, the report was essentially another example of ideological manipulation by a regime seeking to shift attention from its own culpability in the ongoing migration crisis.
For decades, the communist totalitarian regime has forced millions of Cubans into exile through oppression, poverty, and hopelessness. This is the same state that labeled them "worms," seized their homes, denied them entry back into their country, and continues to charge exorbitant fees for consular services.
Yet, with blatant hypocrisy, it now poses as a defender of their rights abroad.
The official media's strategy is both old and effective: cherry-pick real testimonies to construct a distorted narrative.
NTV utilized videos from social media, captured by people desperate in the face of immigration uncertainty, but stripped of any context and, critically, omitting the root cause of their exodus: the failure of the Cuban model.
None of the interviewees spoke about the regime, the wages in Cuba, the repression, or the lack of freedoms, but the news transformed them into elements of a meticulously edited narrative to bolster the image of a cruel and inhumane United States.
The report's concluding message—that "the American dream has turned into a nightmare"—aimed to revive an old paternalistic discourse: the notion that happiness is only achievable within the socialist system.
Ironically, those who craft these narratives have never faced an immigration raid, nor have they stood in line for bread in Havana, or suffered police repression for dissenting opinions.
As the mouthpiece of power, NTV omitted the countless videos of grateful Cubans who have found opportunities in the United States, nor did it highlight the success stories of those who have established businesses, pursued education, or simply live with dignity.
Moreover, it failed to mention that the fear many Cuban migrants experience in exile—like those featured in the videos—is the same fear they carried with them from Cuba: the fear of authority abuse.
The regime needs to portray exiles as victims of an external enemy to conceal that they were first its own victims. This is why it uses public television, funded by the taxes of an impoverished populace, to fabricate false empathy and feign concern for those it condemned to exile.
While official media continues to edit others' tears for propaganda, the root causes of the exodus persist on the island: miserable wages, power outages, censorship, and repression.
No NTV campaign can hide the fact that the true Cuban drama isn't in Miami, but in Cuba itself.
Understanding Cuba's Media Manipulation
What is the purpose of the NTV's report on Cuban expatriates in the U.S.?
The report aims to reinforce the regime's propaganda that life outside Cuba is difficult and that the American Dream is unattainable, while diverting attention from the Cuban government's responsibility for the migration crisis.
How does the Cuban regime use media to manipulate public perception?
The regime selects real testimonies but strips them of context to construct a distorted narrative that serves its ideological goals, often omitting its own failures and culpability.
Why does the Cuban regime portray exiles as victims of an external enemy?
By portraying exiles as victims of an external enemy, the regime seeks to hide the fact that it was the initial cause of their suffering, using public media to create false empathy and concern.