This evening, the Journalism School is presenting the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes, but only three of the four winners will be in attendance. The fourth, blogger Yoani Sanchez, will have to spend the night in her homeland of Cuba, where the one-party government has refused to let the dissident blogger leave.
Sanchez’s Generation Y is perhaps the best-known Cuban dissident blog, receiving over 14 million hits per month. As the J-School’s original press release put it, “Sanchez, a 34-year-old philologist, pursues her craft with ingenuity, scarce resources and an enormous amount of guts; buying a few minutes here and there on one of the few internet-connected computers available to Cubans in Havana, quickly downloading and emailing her written and video comments to devoted supporters who post the blog in 15 languages.”
Unfortunately, Sanchez’s blog is often blocked even for the 2.1% of Cubans that do have access to the internet, and the government remains wary of the growing number of anti-Castro bloggers. Since the freedom to blog hits rather close to home with us, we’ll forgo the snark and just echo J-School Dean Nicholas Lemann’s comments: “The Cuban government ought to value Ms. Sánchez’s work as a sign that young Cubans are ready to take Cuba into a better future — one that will have the free press the Cuban people deserve.”
– Photo: ceslava/Flickr
10 Comments
@PROTEST WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOANI Yoani Sanchez has received direct correspondence from President Obama himself after her recent reports of being beaten by Cuban officials. You can protest what has happened to Yoani. Please read this letter from the Director of the Cabot Prize Program.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B42OOSfIeLFTMjNlM2YzNjctM2U4MS00ZjYzLThhZjMtNzk5NTZhZjA3MmY5&hl=en
@cabotprize http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fqV5f_nd1w&feature=related
@sin-ming shaw CC67 “Sanchez’s Generation Y is perhaps the best-known Cuban dissident blog, receiving over 14 million hits per month.”
Not “perhaps”. And not just “dissident”. It is the best known blog in and of Cuba period.
@cabotprize http://twitter.com/cabotprize
@On a serious note, this reminds people who admire the Castro regime of its fundamentally anti-democratic tendencies.
@question what’s with the new place on broadway with frozen yogurt/cofffee and an asian looking name? is it food? is it just froyo? check it out!
@clg university of havana-north jokes in 3…2…1…
@Anonymous we’re getting old. that O’Reilly comment happened way back in the days of the minute men protest. these kids now are terribly unaware of Columbia’s alter-ego… if only Bill would set America straight again, i could get my hands on one of those snazzy U of H-north tees i use to see around campus.
@uhavananorte ohh man, the fighting fascist liberal anarchists
@Harmony Hunter harmony might as well be in cuba. i can’t find either of them on a map.