Associated Press looks to expand coverage of Cuba

Gary B. Pruitt, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press (in photo above), arrived in Havana this week to discuss an expanded cooperation with the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina in the framework of a distention in relations between the United States and Cuba.

According to PL, “the two sides agreed on the good development of the existing exchange between the two agencies, especially in the field of photography.”

Pruitt met this week with Victor Carriba, PL’s vice president for information, and Edilberto Méndez, vice president for commercial enterprises.

Pruitt was accompanied by Santiago Lyon, vice president and director of photography for The AP; Enric Marti Folgosa, regional director of photography for Latin America and the Caribbean; and Michael Weissenstein, The AP’s bureau chief in Havana.

The Associated Press describes itself in its website as “the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, The AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information.”

“On any given day,” the website says, “more than half of the world’s population sees news from The AP.”

[Click on photos for slides and captions.]

The AP had a bureau in Havana since before the Revolution and provided most of the information from the island after Fidel Castro took over in 1959.

The bureau was shut down by Castro in 1969 but reopened in 1999. It provides text, photo and television coverage of news from the island.

Prensa Latina was founded in 1959 at the initiative of Ernesto Che Guevara to provide information about post-revolutionary Cuba. It is the source of most of the news published by the island’s regional media.