The Truth About Fiedler's Chihuahua comments

The last 36 hours in Miami have been dominated by talk about Miami Herald Exective Editor Tom Fiedler's answer to a question at a meeting with reporters.

An excerpt from an article in yesterday's Herald:

In staff meetings Tuesday, Miami Herald reporters asked whether the paper was caving to critics. Editor Tom Fiedler dismissed that notion, saying the ''22 people who listen to Cuban radio'' were being stirred up by ''little chihuahuas nipping at our heels.''

Here's my take on the comments. If we analyze the question and the context in which it was asked we see that Fiedler's response was wrong-headed but not for the reason most people think.

Mr. Fiedler wanted to convey the idea that the Herald had not been influenced by community pressure to bring the 3 dismissed journalists back. Remember these journalists were dismissed for supposedly violating the Herald's ethics code. Fiedler wanted to tell his staff that the reason the 3 were given "amnesty" was because they were correcting a mistake they had made in not properly investigating the circumstances surrounding the freelance assignments with government-funded Radio/TV Martí and in properly communicating the company's policies about such assignments.

But instead of simply saying that, Mr. Fiedler took the opportunity to lash out at his critics on Spanish talk radio. Let's be clear about this, he did not say that Cubans are Chihuahuas. Anyone that says he said that is lying. But he did refer to those talk radio personalities as Chihuahuas.

Here's why the remarks were wrong-headed. Tom Fiedler should know by now that there's a lot more than 22 people that listen to Cuban talk radio in Miami. Fiedler says he was using hyperbole but effective hyperbole is based in truth. There are certainly radio stations in Miami that one could say have 22 listeners because they have very small audiences that hardly appear in the ratings as anything but hashmarks. But the truth is that the station Fiedler claims he was specifically referring to (WAQI, Radio Mambi) is the highest rated talk station in the market (English or Spanish).

Fiedler grossly underestimates the influence of the station and its personalities. Radio Mambi has been near the center of the Martí Moonlighters controversy because one of its hosts Ninoska Perez Castellon was mentioned in the Oscar Corral Sept. 8th article that resulted in the dismissals of not only the 3 Herald employees but also of a TV sportscaster named Omar Claro. Perez Castellon has maintained all along that the Herald has a right to do what it wants with its own employees but they can't project their code of ethics on other journalists that don't work for them. She claims that in doing so the newspaper unfairly smeared her and others.

I don't know what Tom Fiedler expected. Did he think that Perez Castellon et al would simply take the attacks on their integrity lying down. The fact is that the Herald created this mess when it published a sloppy and incomplete story with an inflammatory headline and equally inflammatory copywriting.

Mr. Fiedler claims that he was bothered by the accusations made on Radio Mambi that The Herald was in league with Cuba's Castro regime. But the fact remains that Cuban state television reported the essence of the Herald's Sept. 8th story a week before it was published. It's only reasonable to think this happened because either The Herald got its idea for the story from someone in the Cuban government (unlikely because it's been widely reported that the Chicago Tribune was working on the story as well and that's why The Herald rushed to publish its version) or someone in the Herald leaked the story to the Cuban government. Neither scenario is a pleasant one for the Herald. The questions Radio Mambi raised are legitimate and deserve answers. Answers that Feidler hasn't been forthcoming with.

Back to Fiedler's Chihuahua comment. His comment is demeaning in the sense that he portrays Cuban-Americans as people that are easily and irrationally swayed and propelled into loud demonstations. This is a condescending attitude that I doubt Fiedler would express so easily about any other ethnic group in our community. I mean imagine him saying:

"22 people who listen to Black radio are being stirred up by junkyard dogs nipping at our heels.''

You can't imagine it. But he can say that about Cubans because it's become en vogue to savage Cuban-Americans in the media. The Herald has several columnists whose only job seems to be exactly that. The fact is that The Herald was trying to turn the page and hopefully rebuild trust with the Cuban-American community after its disastrous reporting on the Martí Moonlighters when Fiedler stuck his foot in his mouth. I don't see how Fiedler can continue to credibly do his job when a large segment of his audience thinks he is a bigot.

For the record, Fiedler's comments are the second occasion in as many weeks that a Herald employee has used a canine reference to describe at least part of the Cuban-American community.

Perhaps as Guillermo Benitez told Fiedler on Spanish radio yesterday, instead of Chihuahuas nipping at his heels he has poked a Great Dane in the eye.