United States and Cuba Reunited

When the United States began normalizing communications with Cuba in recent months, I wanted to find a better angle on the story. I thought about what might influence each publication when writing their story about the U.S. and Cuba relationship, and geographic location played a big part in my decision. I decided that for a different take on Cuba, I would read something that was published close to the action--which is how I found the Miami Herald.

Florida is known for it’s close proximity to Cuba, and it’s no doubt that Miami has a large cuban population. So, I decided to take a look at “U.S. business relations with Cuba seem to have one speed: slow” written by Mimi Whitefield and see how the story might differ from something I would read in California.

From the beginning I could tell that Whitefield was doing her homework. She starts with a hook to lure in readers with information on cuban companies, and quickly transitions in her next few paragraphs to a quote from a trustworthy source. Whitefield reached out to a lawyer for a Florida produce company, something I see as a great journalistic decision. Not only will a lawyer be trusted as an official source, he will be easy to defend if anyone question his comments.

Whitefield supplies a few more pieces of evidence in support of the speed claims, before shifting her focus and allowing the other side of the argument to enter. She shows good journalistic value in allowing her voice to guide the story, but not to supply the facts. She uses sources from various places to supply the hard data and simply lets the reader decide how to interpret it.

Whitefield does something that I really enjoy seeing when reading publications from across the country, she quotes a professor from a university in another state. She uses a quote from a professor at University of California at San Diego, which lets me know that she was aware that there may be better source outside of Miami where she could get information. With today’s technology, there isn’t much of an excuse for not reaching out to the best source of information for a quote.

Finally when wrapping up her piece, the author provides the reader good background information on Cuba and its political system. The time she takes to do so is important because it gives readers context on the information they just learned. As a result, she has equipped the reader with enough to draw educated conclusions and find a stance among the issue.

You can read her article here: United States and Cuba: Slow