Blondie, Duran Duran and Raul's "Reforms"

at 10:00 AM Thursday, April 21, 2011

BY: THE HILL

Yesterday, we posted the Miami Herald's 1986 story on the III Cuban Communist Party Congress.

We wanted to highlight it again today, for it's really the best example of the media's sensationalism in reporting this weekend's VI Party Congress.

Just note the terminology - sweeping changes, fresh breezes, improved relations with the Catholic Church, home ownership, cultural leniency.

These are the same "initiatives" being extolled today -- 25 years later -- as Raul Castro's "new reforms."

It's like featuring Blondie or Duran Duran as a new pop group (they too went out in the 1980s).

We hope that the media -- particularly the foreign news bureaus in Havana -- take note.

Here's the 1986 story:

DRAMATIC CHANGES ARE SWEEPING CUBA AS PARTY CONVENE

SAM DILLON Herald Staff Writer

"Revolution in the revolution" overstates the case, but Cuba is undergoing significant, perhaps watershed change, as President Fidel Castro convenes his Communist Party's Third Congress here today.

Fresh breezes have been blowing across the revolutionary island for over a year, as Castro has courted Cuba's Roman Catholic hierarchy, relaxed Stalinist cultural restrictions, permitted Cubans to own their own homes and cajoled many of his one-time enemies across Latin America into new friendships.

Equally dramatic has been Castro's reorganization of Cuban leadership. He has replaced at least 11 high officers, including the interior, transportation, health and planning ministers.

Influencing the political developments have been Castro's attempts to revamp Cuba's economy, to carry out what one year ago Castro called a "revolution in our economic conceptions."