From Information to Action

From Information to Action / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez
Posted on November 12, 2015

Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 12 November 2015 — My grandmother only knew
how to write the first letter of her name. She would sign documents with
an almost childish looking capitalized "A." In spite of being
illiterate, Ana always advised me to study and learn as much as
possible. Nevertheless, that laundress who never went to school taught
me the best lesson of my life: that tenacity and hard work are needed to
accomplish one's dreams. She instilled in me the urgency of "action."
Action with a capital "A," like the only letter of her name that she
could write.
However, action can become a problem if it is not appropriately
accompanied by information. An uninformed citizen is easy prey for the
powerful, a guaranteed victim for manipulation and control. In fact, an
individual without information cannot be considered a whole citizen,
because her rights will constantly be violated and she will not know how
to demand and reclaim them.

The most expansive authoritarian regimes in history have been
characterized by a strict control of the media and a high disregard for
freedom of information. For these systems, a journalist is an
uncomfortable individual who must be tamed, silenced, or eliminated.
These are societies where a journalist is recognized only when she
repeats the official government rhetoric, applauds the authorities, and
sings praises to the system.

I have lived forty years under a government that considers that
information is treason. At first, when I learned to read and began to
pay attention to the national media, with its optimistic headlines and
data on the country's economic over-achievement, I blindly believed what
those newspapers were saying. That country that only existed in the ink
of the Cuban Communist Party's national newspaper was similar to the one
my teachers taught me about in school, similar to the one from the
Marxist manuals and the speeches of the Maximum Leader. But it did not
resemble the reality.

From the frustration between my desires to know and the wall of silence
that the official Cuban press imposes on so many issues, the person I am
now was born.

My first reaction in the face of so much manipulation and censorship –
like that of so many of my fellow citizens – was simply to stop reading
that press which served those in power, that propaganda disguised as
journalism. Like millions of Cubans, I sought information that was
hidden, censored news articles, and I learned to hear the radio
transmissions coming from outside even with the interference that the
government would impose on them.

I felt like I would drown if I wasn't informed. But, then another moment
came. A moment when I switched to "action." It wasn't enough to know
everything that was being hidden from me and to decipher the truth
behind so many false statistics and such editorial grandiloquence. I
wanted to be part of those who narrated the Cuban reality. Thus, I began
my blog Generation Y in April of 2007, and with it I took the path of no
return as a reporter and a journalist. A path filled with danger,
gratification, and great responsibility.

During the past eight years, I have lived all of the extremes of the
journalistic profession: the honors and the pains; the frustration of
not being allowed to enter an official press conferences and the marvel
of finding an ordinary Cuban who gives me the most valuable of
testimonies. I have had moments where I have exalted this profession and
moments in which I wished I had never written that first word. There is
no journalist who does not carry the burden of her own demons.

Now, I lead a media outlet, 14ymedio, the first independent news
platform inside of Cuba. I am no longer the teenager who turned her eyes
away from the official press, looked for other alternative news sources,
and later began her own blog as if she were someone opening a window
into the entrails of a country. I now have new responsibilities. I lead
a group of journalists, who every day must cross the lines of illegality
to perform their jobs.

I am responsible for each and every one of the journalists who are a
part of the newsroom of our news platform. The worst moments are when
one of them takes longer than expected to return from covering a story
and we have to call their family to say that they have been arrested or
are being interrogated. Those are the days that I wish that I had not
written that first word…or that I had not written that first word the
moment I did, but much earlier.

I feel that if we had moved towards action, and if we had exercised our
right to inform much earlier, Cuba would now be a country where a
journalist would not be synonymous with a tamed professional or a
furtive criminal. But at least we have begun to do it. We have moved
from information into action, to help change a nation through news,
reporting, and journalism. It is Action with a capital "A," like the one
my grandmother wrote on those papers though she never really understood
what they were saying.

Note: Speech delivered by Yoani Sanchez on 10 November in New York, at
the ceremony for the 2015 Knight International Journalism Awards. The
director of 14ymedio was given the award last May by the International
Center for Journalists for her "uncommon resolve in the fight against
censorship."

Source: From Information to Action / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/from-information-to-action-14ymedio-yoani-sanchez/