al Science tic & li P El-Bendary, J Pol Sci Pub Aff 2016, 4:2 o u P b f l i o c DOI: 10.4172/2332-0761.1000199 l A a Journal of Political Sciences & f n f r a u i r o s J ISSN: 2332-0761 Public Affairs Research Article Open Access Ending Decades of Animosity: Framing 2014 Thaw in US-Cuba Diplomatic Relations in the Washington Post and Miami Herald El-Bendary Md* Former Journalism Lecturer, Massey University, New Zealand Abstract On December 17, 2014, US President Barak Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro simultaneously announced from Washington and Havana that their countries would resume diplomatic relations ended half a century ago. But how did the US press frame the détente? Exploratory and comparative in nature, the study mainly and inclusively examines- via qualitative and quantitative analysis-the US press’s coverage of the restoration of US-Cuba diplomatic relations. It seeks out the themes in newspaper opinion items in the Miami Herald and The Washington Post to explain the American public’s position and interpretation of Obama’s new Cuba policy. Keywords: Cuban revolution; Cold war; Cuba policy; Soviet union The thaw has had a wider implication in Latin America, particularly for Cuba’s strong regional partner Venezuela-another American Introduction bogeyman in Latin America and the ideological crony of Cuba-which is 4 On December 17, 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban encountering economic instability because of declining oil prices . The President Raúl Castro simultaneously announced from Washington American public’s opinion was divided on the issue. A Pew Research and Havana that their countries would resume normal diplomatic Center poll (2015) revealed that 63% of Americans support restoring relations ended half a century ago. Super-secret talks were under way diplomatic relations with Cuba, while only 32% believe it would result between the United States and Cuba for more than a year, and the in greater democracy on the island. This change in opinion was also 5 decision took many by surprise. The US broke off diplomatic relations displayed among Cuban Americans . A survey conducted by the with Cuba on January 3, 1961, following the 1959 Cuban Revolution Florida-based Bendixen and Amandi International (2014) found that which brought Fidel Castro to power. Under Castro’s communist Cuban Americans are closely divided on Obama’s policy shift with leadership, U.S Cuba relations were filled with animosities, including Cuba, with 44% supporting normalizing relations with Cuba and 48% the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and an American trade embargo opposing it. Finding revealed a significant generational gape, with 53% imposed on the island a year later. This tug-of-war with Cuba-a nation, of those born in Cuba opposing the policy change and 64% of Cuban of eleven million continued, spanning eleven U.S presidencies. “These Americans born in the US supporting it. 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” said Obama in his But was the American press optimistic or pessimistic in its coverage announcement. of the rapprochement? Exploratory and comparative in nature, this In his televised address, eighty-three-year-old President Castro, study mainly and inclusively examines the US press’s coverage of the who assumed leadership from his brother Fidel in 2008, observed that 2014 restoration of US-Cuba diplomatic relations. It seeks out the there remain profound differences between his country and America themes in newspaper opinion items of the détente in the Miami Herald, with the embargo continuing to be the stumbling block. Castro which is published from south Florida and caters to America’s largest added that they freed U.S. Agency for International Development Cuban community, and The Washington Post, a “newspaper of record” subcontractor Alan Gross from detention for humanitarian causes. The which operates from the nation’s capital where US foreign policy historic three-for-one prisoner swap included Washington’s release of decisions are manufactured6. We did not include Spanish-language three Cuban spies serving long terms in American prisons in exchange newspapers such as El Nuevo Herald, which is also owned by the for the release of an unnamed US intelligence agent. The three Cuban prisoners are part of the spy network known as the Cuban Five who Miami Herald Media Company, because we desired newspapers that were convicted of informing Havana of the movements of anti-Castro reach a wider audience in Florida and not just the Cuban American Cubans in Miami and of operations that led to Cuba’s 1996 shoot down 4From a peak of $100 in late June 2014, the price of Venezuelan oil hit $42.44 a of two airplanes in Florida carrying anti-Castro activists1. barrel six months later. 5There are roughly two million Cubans and Americans of Cuban descent living in Obama declared that efforts will be exerted toward re-instating US the US. and Cuban embassies in Havana and Washington respectively. In the 6The Post has won forty seven Pulitzer Prizes and was published in 1877; the month that followed, and until this study was completed in late January Herald has won twenty Pulitzer Prizes and was published in 1903. 2015, the Cuban government released all the fifty three Cuban political prisoners2 whose cases had been advocated for by Washington-and it promised to increase Internet connections for its citizens3. *Corresponding author: El-Bendary Md, Former Journalism Lecturer, Massey 1The shooting of the Brothers to the Rescue airplanes resulted in the death of three University, New Zealand, Tel: +20 0122026243; E-mail: [email protected] Americans and a legal resident. The Cuban Five spies are admired in Cuba as Received April 25, 2016; Accepted April 28, 2016; Published May 02, 2016 anti-terrorism heroes, and three of them were held in US jails for sixteen years; the other two were freed before the Obama-Castro agreement because they served Citation: El-Bendary M (2016) Ending Decades of Animosity: Framing 2014 Thaw their term already. in US-Cuba Diplomatic Relations in the Washington Post and Miami Herald. J Pol 2The Castro government did consent to Washington’s demands that the Cuban Sci Pub Aff 4: 199. doi:10.4172/2332-0761.1000199 dissidents be allowed to remain in Cuba and take part in peaceful political activities. Copyright: © 2016 El-Bendary M. This is an open-access article distributed under 3Following the statement made by US officials on January 12 that all 53 Cuban the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted political prisoners were released, human rights monitors in Miami argued that only use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and 43 were released. source are credited. J Pol Sci Pub Aff ISSN: 2332-0761 JPSPA, an open access journal Volume 4 • Issue 2 • 1000199 Citation: El-Bendary M (2016) Ending Decades of Animosity: Framing 2014 Thaw in US-Cuba Diplomatic Relations in the Washington Post and Miami Herald. J Pol Sci Pub Aff 4: 199. doi:10.4172/2332-0761.1000199 Page 2 of 7 community. A discourse analysis of the frames found in opinion items • What are the most prominent frames and issues made salient in the two papers is utilized to explain the American public’s position in articles? and interpretation of Obama’s new Cuba policy. • How did they frame the position of the Cuban American News Framing and Discourse Analysis community on the issue? Framing research deals with how the media choose to depict issues • How often was reference made to the “Cold War” and and impart a certain spin to the events they cover. Tuchman [1] was the “communist/communism” in each newspaper? first to apply framing to news gathering and views that the most essential The main hypothesis is that the thaw in US-Cuba relations will mission of media framing is their capacity to organize everyday reality. receive mixed reactions in the US media. Coverage in the Herald will, Hence, noted Tuchman, “news is a window on the world”. Gitlin [2] however, be less favorable of the détente than in The Post, this is because notes that media frames organize the world for journalists who cover of the influence of the large Cuban-American community in Miami- it and for consumers who depend on their coverage. He perceives the capital of Cuban exile. The Herald will make more reference to framing as “persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation and communist/communism than the Post, while the latter will carry more presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol mentioning of the Cold War than the earlier. This is possibly because handlers routinely organize discourse”. To frame, said Entman [3], of reference that is likely to be made in Herald articles by Cuban is “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more Americans in south Florida-where more than one million Cubans salient in communicating text in such a way as to promote a particular reside-to the Castros as communists or symbols of Communism and problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or to Cuba as a communist state. It is natural, on the other side, for the treatment recommendation”. Furthermore, when framing involves a discourse on Cuba in a newspaper of record like The Post, published political enemy, it inexorably leads to stories that ignore certain facts from the nation’s capital, to be colored more with Cold War fever. Both and emphasize others [4]. In this study, it involves the US media’s papers will, however, praise Obama for ending what they perceive as definition of Cuba as a communist state and Castros as dictators, Cold War hysteria.