Cuba
Cuba has one of the most restrictive media environments in the Americas. Article 55 of the Constitution provides that the country’s fundamental social-communication media may be socialist property of the whole people or may belong to recognised political, social and mass organisations, and may not take any other form of ownership. Law 162/2023 on Social Communication consolidated this framework: adopted in 2023, published in June 2024 and in force since October 2024, it defines news agencies, radio, television and print and digital news media as “fundamental media” and places the direction of the communication system under the Instituto de Información y Comunicación Social (ICS).
The framework excludes independent private ownership of fundamental news media. Independent journalism outside the authorised party-state system lacks legal recognition and is forced to operate informally, clandestinely or from abroad. Reporters Without Borders ranked Cuba 160th of 180 in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 29.22, in the “very serious” category, second-lowest in the Americas after Nicaragua. RSF reports that independent journalists face surveillance, arbitrary detention, confiscation of equipment and pressure to leave the country, and that many independent outlets operate from exile.
State Media Monitor maps four media organisations and authorities in Cuba, all classified State-Controlled (SC): the central communication authority, the ruling party’s newspaper, the domestic news agency and the international news agency.
The Instituto de Información y Comunicación Social (ICS) is the central government authority directing Cuba’s social-communication policy. Created in 2021 by Decree-Law 41 to succeed the former radio and television institute, it incorporates the national Radio Cubana and Televisión Cubana systems and, under Law 162, directs and regulates the entire communication system.
Granma is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, the party’s own publication, with leadership appointed through the PCC structure. Since March 2026 it has appeared as a digital daily with a weekly print edition.
The Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) is Cuba’s national domestic news agency, distributing text, photography, audio, video and teletext from a Havana newsroom with correspondents in every province.
Prensa Latina, formally Agencia Informativa Latinoamericana S.A., is Cuba’s state international news agency, founded in 1959 and operating 30 foreign bureaux across four continents.