The Impact of the End of the Cold War on Canadian and American TV News Coverage of Cuba: Image Consistency or Image Change?

The profound changes experienced by the international political system from 1988 to 1992, subsumed under the rubric “the fall of Communism,” suggest an opportunity for changes in the way North American television news would report on events in Cuba. This article examines major network news coverage of Cuba in Canada (CBC and CTV) and in the United States (ABC, CBS, and NBC) from 1988 through 1992. Given the different histories of Canadian-Cuban and U.S.-Cuban relations since the revolution, the extent of similar negative coverage of the island in both countries’ reporting is somewhat surprising. Also, it is apparent that the end of the Cold War did not change, in any fundamental way, the frames employed by television news in its coverage of Cuba.