On March 14, Cuban Press Day, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez met with over 80 media representatives to discuss the press's role in complex times. He highlighted opportunities with new technologies like websites, social media, and artificial intelligence. Attendees shared experiences of digital transformation at outlets like Granma and Cubadebate.
On March 14, Cuban Press Day, First Secretary of the Party's Central Committee and President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez met with media representatives. “May the merit of our press continue to be, as it always has, to live up to the Revolution and to our people,” he told the over 80 attendees, including executives, journalists, and social media specialists, alongside Political Bureau member Roberto Morales Ojeda, Central Committee Ideology Department head Yuniasky Crespo Baquero, Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh, and Institute of Information and Social Communication president Alfonso Noya Martínez. Moderated by Union of Cuban Journalists president Ricardo Ronquillo Bello, the dialogue reviewed the press management model's transformation amid declining print circulations and challenges like fuel shortages and power outages. Díaz-Canel suggested print editions focus on in-depth content while digitizing vast historical archives with photos and Fidel's editorials. With fuel shortages keeping people in communities, he urged closer audience interactions. Granma editor-in-chief Yoerky Sánchez Cuellar described shifting to a multiplatform organization with weekly print and 24/7 digital operations, reallocating teams from print. Ideas Multimedios and Cubadebate general director Randy Alonso Falcón outlined their self-funded model with millions of followers, adapting via community-based work and social media amid constraints. In summary, Díaz-Canel stated that “the Cuban press is not standing still; it is fighting, it is innovating,” serving as an ideological front line in a “sixth-generation war” and vehicle of sovereignty.
