The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel arrived at the Radio Rebelde studios on Wednesday around 7:00 am and announced the upcoming premiere of "Criterio Compartido," a new radio program that he will co-host with journalist Bárbara Betancourt.
According to the official account of the Presidency of Cuba on X, the program will be «a space to discuss the reality of Cuba», a description the regime disseminated without specifying the premiere date or the frequency of the program.
During the visit, the leader toured the facilities of the broadcaster and interacted with the team of the magazine "Haciendo Radio."
The choice of Radio Rebelde—the most far-reaching and symbolically significant within the Cuban state system—and a high-profile journalist as a co-host, points to a strategy of communicational legitimization at a time of profound economic and social crisis on the Island.
Betancourt, for her part, is a veteran figure in Cuba's official media. She has also worked at Radio Habana Cuba and is an advisor, screenwriter, and panelist for the televised Mesa Redonda. In August, she received the National Radio Award, the highest recognition in the sector in Cuba. Díaz-Canel himself publicly congratulated her in July.
The announcement of "Criterio Compartido" comes after Díaz-Canel quietly stepped away from his previous endeavor as host: the podcast "Desde la Presidencia," launched in March 2024, which produced a total of 32 episodes.
The last identified episode of that podcast, dedicated to the ETECSA rate increase, was released in June 2025. Since then, over 15 months have passed without a new episode or any official announcement regarding the suspension of the format. The podcast has been forgotten without any public explanation.
Now, instead of a digital format, the leader is betting on traditional radio with the production of the most emblematic station of the state system.
So far this year, he has increased his appearances in official media: he appeared on national television in February and March, met with over 80 representatives of state media, gave interviews to NBC News, RT, and Latin American outlets, and brought his perspective on the Cuban crisis to Dominican television.
The pattern is clear: while Cuba is experiencing one of its worst crises in decades—with prolonged blackouts, widespread shortages, and a massive exodus of its population—the regime is intensifying its presence in the media it controls to try to shape the narrative about the country's situation.
Radio Rebelde was founded on February 24, 1958, in the Sierra Maestra and is regarded by the state system itself as "the first and largest news station of Cuban Radio." The fact that Díaz-Canel chose this particular platform for his new program does not seem coincidental: it is the medium with the greatest symbolic weight available within the regime's media apparatus.
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