After 15 Years I’m Asking Readers to Weigh-In on Our Future
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES – As I mark off another anniversary, I feel it’s time to ask you, our readers, whether we are in fact providing you with an important service.
This non-commercial journalistic endeavor was originally conceived in Havana in 2008 as a two-or three-year project. The goal at the time was to provide people interested in Cuba with an English language publication concerning different aspects of life on the island. We sought to add voices and opinions absent in the Cuban government media, without excluding the Communist Party’s discourse on the present, past and future of Cuba.
By year two, we were also publishing in Spanish, a demand of the writers themselves who wanted to share their articles with fellow Cubans and others of the Spanish speaking world.
Time flew by, and we are now in our sixteenth year of daily publication. For me personally it has represented around 30% of my adult life. We started out only focused on Cuba, but over the last decade also incorporated Nicaragua as a priority country, plus Chile, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries to a lesser degree.
One of the hardest things for those involved in the publication has been what to do about the progressively worsening news and events in both Cuba and Nicaragua, as the two dictatorships made it clear they are planning to maintain power as long as they can by force and at any cost.
The policy of bullets, jail or exile for those who dissent from the official line has brought untold heartache and touched many of our writers personally. In both Cuba and Nicaragua, the governing regimes have spurned all real attempts at dialogue, debate, or consensus, where hope has become elusive, leading to a mass exodus.
As the HT editor/publisher I need your help
Today I want to ask for your assistance in moving forward during the coming year. Please answer any or all the following questions and send your answers to [email protected]
Approximately how often do you access Havana Times?
Do you usually access by phone or computer?
Do you usually enter from an article link you receive or by opening our main page?
What do like most of Havana Times and why?
What do you like least of HT and why?
Is the publication of any use to you to better understand life and the situation in Cuba and/or Nicaragua?
Do you like when we also cover other Latin American countries?
What suggestions do you have for the coming period?
How can we improve?
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To read more on the beginning and history of Havana Times click here.
Hello Circles. I have enjoyed your blog for for at least 10 of those 15 years. Early on I somehow found time to read posts and comment, if possible, several times a week. Now, I am happy and lucky to check in once a week if I can. How to improve you ask? I am a big fan so that is a hard question for me. I find that I have less time to enjoy the photo essays so no comments there. But what I miss are the lively debates between the clearly pro-Castro types who trolled the blog and those of us who had a more “realistic” perspective of life in Cuba. What happened to the commentors who defended the failed Dictatorship? Did they give up? Can’t say I blame them but it was good fun to read their crazy justifications. Many times, as Editor, you would have to chime in to lower the temperature and keep the discourse civil. When was the last time you had to do that? Anyway for me, that would be an improvement. But where are all the Castro sycophants these days? I don’t have the foggiest idea as to how you could encourage their readership and comments.
Approximately how often do you access Havana Times? Very often. Once a day minimum.
Do you usually access by phone or computer? I access by tablet and/or computer.
Do you usually enter from an article link you receive or by opening our main page? I access by opening Havana Time’s main page.
What do like most of Havana Times and why? Havana Times provides the reader with a balanced approach to journalism which is unavailable in Cuba and most other Latin American countries. First hand accounts from Cuban citizens gives a realistic and truthful understanding of what is occurring specifically in this country.
What do you like least of HT and why? I have no negative faults with the publication.
Is the publication of any use to you to better understand life and the situation in Cuba and/or Nicaragua? Absolutely. In my travels, Havana Times accurately depicts the struggles Cubans must endure on a daily basis. Havana Times provides readers outside the Cuban state with an accurate portrayal of life and the increasingly negative situation on the island.
Do you like when we also cover other Latin American countries? Yes. Cuban citizens are not the only ones in Latin America undergoing communist dictatorial control.
What suggestions do you have for the coming period? Keep up the excellent journalistic work provided thus far. Is there anyway your publication can be linked to travel agents who provide vacation packages for foreigners to Cuba? If those million or so Canadians who vacation to Cuba on an annual basis had a better insight of what is really happening on the tropical island perhaps they may be more inclined to help and most certainly be more informed.
How can we improve?