Thursday, July 16, 2009

No more Snow in Havana

AP has named a new Havana bureau chief, Paul Haven. The bureau’s original chief, Anita Snow, is on her way to a Harvard fellowship.

Snow opened and managed that bilingual print/broadcast bureau and survived a fire in the office and all the vagaries of working in Cuba, all the while using a keen eye to produce coverage of breaking news, plus features and analysis.

She did a series of articles in 2007 that described her month-long experience eating solely on 350 pesos, a typical Cuban income. (That series reminded me of a friend’s wish that some of the more credulous visitors to Cuba would undergo a “Live Like a Cuban” program, living on pesos, waiting in lines, carrying buckets of water up the stairs, etc.)

I also liked this long piece (pdf) from last December that used the Malecon as a prism to look at Cuba on the 50th anniversary of the socialist revolution. It’s “a system that may be softening at the edges but appears determined to crush any threat to its grip on power, lest it crumble like its one-time godfather, the Soviet Union,” she assessed.

Thanks, Anita.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, thanks Anita...she compromised journalistic principles again and again just to keep the regime from kicking AP out of the country...I guess it was worth it you Peters

Anonymous said...

anon 9.24.

Funny how when you don't agree with a journalist, you simply say they are 'biased' and don't have journalistic principles.

sounds like authoritiarian mind-set - dismiss folks that disagree with you by saying they lack morals, or make up consipracies.

If she was awarded Harvard fellowship, this tells me that whether you agree with her or not, she is top professional. Congrats. Anita. !!

lets see all of the know-nothings get a Harvard fellowship. Ha!

The Hypervigilant Observer said...

Anita Snow hung-in there a long time.

For putting up with the Cuban bureaucrats and their rosy outlooks, she deserves long sabbatical.

Anonymous said...

In the 5th episode of season 1 of MI-5 (called Spooks originally accross the Pond) titled "The Rose Bed Memoirs" , a British MP goes on to Harvard after being forced to resign due to a smear campaign orchestrated by a convicted ex-minister. It appears that the smear campaign was orchestrated by MI-6 because this up-and-coming MP was destined to become Foreign Minister and that would never do to our special relationship partners since he was a CIA asset.

Maybe Ms. Snow's appointment is a case of reality imitating art or at least pretentious TV! Anyway Ms. Snow deserves a nice rest after being scrutinized by Cuban security for maybe too long. Cambridge can be a little too cold at times but it is a great place to play being an academic. But forget about pahking her cah in Hahvahd Yahd!

I for one has appreciated her reporting even when not agreeing with her editorial judgments. She did her job the best she could under very difficult circumstances. I can not remember a single case when she lied.

Vecino de NF

Anonymous said...

any journalist who does just that, practices journalism, will eventually be kicked out of Cuba as has happened time and time again. Snow didn't get kicked out...enough said.