Granma is a newspaper that was founded in 1965. It runs a print edition that appears from Monday to Saturday and an online portal regularly updated, which also offers news in English, French, Portuguese and Italian. Granma is the main print media outlet with a nationwide coverage in Cuba. “Granma” was the name of the boat used by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, along with a group of rebels, to travel at the end of the 1950s from Mexico to Cuba to initiate the revolution.
Media assets
Publishing: Granma
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
The newspaper Granma was set up as the official channel of the Communist Party of Cuba. The decisions regarding the appointment of the Granma’s management belong entirely to the Communist Party, which as a rule chooses its most loyal members to run the publication.
Source of funding and budget
There is no public information about the funds of Granma, but local journalists say that it is common knowledge in Cuba that the newspaper is fully funded by the government (through the official party).
Editorial independence
Granma is calling itself as the “official channel of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.” The Cuban Constitution defines the primary role of the Communist Party in the organization of state affairs.
The editorial position of Granma is explicitly favorable to the “revolution” and to the official party in the Cuban government. The newspaper states that its main objective is to promote, through its articles and commentaries, “the work of the revolution and its principles. In this respect, according to Granma’s own statement, the newspaper professes its fealty to the party whose policies it openly promotes.
There is no statute that establishes the independence of Granma.
There is no independent assessment mechanism to validate the independence of Granma. The newspaper has a department that is in charge of handling feedback from readers, which publishes every Friday letters that it receives from readers with complaints about various authorities and manages responses from the respective authorities. The section serves as a bridge between readers, government and the newspaper. However, that hardly qualifies as an editorial oversight mechanism.
August 2023