More firings at TV and Radio Marti over controversial George Soros report
Four additional staffers at Radio and TV Martí have been fired over a controversial report broadcast last year that referred to Jewish philanthropist George Soros as “anti-Semitic” — bringing to eight the number of dismissals at the station so far following a months-long internal investigation by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), which oversees the Martí stations, as well as the Martínoticias digital site.
The report, aired by Isabel Cuervo for the Antena Live program, raises conspiracy theories about Soros, who is identified as a “left-wing billionaire of Hungarian-Jewish origin” and a “nonpracticing Jew of flexible morals.” The broadcast, which aired in three separate segments, included an interview that was posted on YouTube by RT.com that Cuervo used with no attribution to the source and another one passed off as her own interview with an alleged expert.
Cuervo and former News Editor Wilfredo Cancio were dismissed immediately after then Senator Jeff Flake and Senator Bob Menéndez demanded an investigation. The Martí report, broadcast last May, made headlines at the end of October when a blog on Cuban issues raised questions about the broadcast just days after Soros received a bomb threat.
John Lansing, director of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Radio and TV Martí, issued a statement Wednesday saying that the three-part report should have never aired.
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Their mistake was not being a Republican in Congress, the White House, or in Fox News.