Cuban press focuses more on country's problems

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Granma newspaper, the mouthpiece of Cuba's ruling Communist Party and former President Fidel Castro, has doubled the page count of its Friday editions to provide more information in a country debating its future.

The larger edition -- 16 pages instead of the usual eight -- points to changes in the Cuban press since Castro, 81 and sidelined by illness, handed over the running of Cuba in July 2006 to his brother Raul Castro, who has encouraged debate on the country's economic problems.

Granma and its sister paper, Juventud Rebelde of the Communist Youth organization, have begun to print stories on inefficiency, theft and corruption in the state-run economy.

The newspapers have long focused their criticism on Cuba's ideological enemy, the United States, and ignored negative news on Cuba. Crime stories seldom appeared in print.

Last year, Juventud Rebelde exposed the dysfunction in many state enterprises and serious problems in the delivery of dental care, and reported on widespread unemployment in Cuba.

Even top party officials are now following Raul Castro's cue and encouraging journalists to be more hard-nosed.

"The Cuban revolution needs analytical and investigative journalism that can help solve the central issues of today's society," Rolando Alfonso, head of the party's ideology department, said on Thursday.

Cuban journalists are more accustomed to toeing the official line than digging up dirt in a one-party government that censors the media and allows no independent press.