Blacklisted from her home country, Cuba, Nora Gámez Torres (PhD Sociology, 2012), has spent over a decade covering Cuba and the Cuban American community for the Miami Herald. Some of Nora’s recent work exposed the expansion of the economic and political power of the Cuban military. This summer, Nora was announced a winner of the Maria Moors Cabot prizes, alongside fellow City St George’s graduate Isabella Cota, for outstanding reporting on the Americas.
“Of course, reporting on military secrets or exposing government human rights abuses has not made me a popular figure with the Cuban government. I am blacklisted, and I have not been allowed to travel to the island in recent years,” says Dr Nora Gámez Torres.
Based in Miami in the United States, Nora is a journalist at the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, covering Cuba and the Cuban American community. Many Cubans who fled Cuba’s former president, Fidel Castro’s, rule, settled in Miami, creating the largest Cuban American community in the U.S.
“So, Cuba is really local news for us,” Nora explains, and the past decade has seen a plenitude of historical events for her to cover.
“… the restoration of diplomatic relationships between the United States and Cuba, the death of Fidel Castro, the first non-Castro “president”, Trump’s tougher policies, the historic July 11 anti-government protests in 2021,” are some of the ones she mentions.
“The pace of changes in Cuban society, in politics, in U.S. policy, [and] in the Cuban exile community seems to have accelerated incredibly in these years, and I have been there to tell those stories.”
Nora didn’t set out to become a journalist; she grew up dreaming of a career as an archaeologist or art historian.
“I was fascinated with the past, not the present. But I had always been drawn to writing, so I enrolled in journalism school at the University of Havana,” she says.
“I soon realised there was little to be dazzled by journalism when your job prospects are working at state media, mainly producing government propaganda.”
The professional restrictions made her turn to academia and teaching at the University of Havana, before she won scholarships to pursue a master’s degree in media and communications at the London School of Economics, and a PhD in sociology at City St George’s.
“I really wanted to understand my country and produce knowledge about it, which, ironically, you could only do if you were studying abroad, because of the pervasive censorship in Cuban academia,” Nora says, explaining why she turned to sociology for her PhD.
“Since I wouldn’t be allowed to do fieldwork on the island if I pursued an openly political path of inquiry, I obliquely approached the subject of political and social change in contemporary Cuba by studying popular music. Because of its coded language, popular music had resisted censorship and provided Cubans with a venue to voice criticism of the government and try to make sense of their reality. Sometimes criticism was loud, for example, in hip hop. If you put the moral panic about reggaeton aside and listen to the lyrics and the performance, you will immediately understand that Cubans had been embracing capitalism for quite some time, despite the official communist ideology emanating from the Party. That was eye-opening.
“City provided me with the resources and the freedom to pursue my research, and for that, I am very grateful,” she says.
Nora was still looking to pursue academia when she, by chance, landed a position first at El Nuevo Herald, the Miami Herald’s sister Spanish-language newspaper, covering Cuba-related issues, and then at the Miami Herald.
“It was not what I was looking for, and yet, it was even better. It’s been exhilarating,” she says.
Some of Nora’s recent work has covered the expansion of the economic and political power of the Cuban military.
“I recently published an investigation based on leaked secret financial documents, which showed that GAESA, the economic arm of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, is responsible for approximately 40% of the country’s GDP and had amassed $18 billion in current assets as of March last year,” she says.
“That is mind-blowing, especially because Cubans have been struggling with food shortages, lack of medicines, and daily blackouts in recent years. The fact that the military has kept all of this money from other civil branches of the government tells you a lot about who is the ultimate power holder in the country right now.”
Nora’s extensive portfolio was recognised this summer when she was named a winner of the prestigious 2025 Maria Moors Cabot prizes for outstanding reporting on the Americas. The prizes are the oldest international journalism awards, founded in 1938, and awarded by Columbia Journalism School.
“I am incredibly honoured to be in such a distinguished list of journalists covering Latin America,” Nora says.
“It is sobering to see your name next to those of editors of prominent Cuban newspapers during the Republican years, before the revolution led by Fidel Castro nationalised all the media.”
As a journalist reporting on a country she’s unable to visit, Nora finds herself in the company of many foreign reporters who would normally be on the ground.
“I have done most of my work from Miami, relying on island sources, sources in Washington, Cubans visiting the United States, and a few Cuban independent news outlets. It’s the sort of reporting from afar that now major U.S. outlets are implementing to cover places where it is unsafe to send American reporters, like Russia or Iran,” she explains.
“It helps that I was born and lived in Cuba, and understand the one-party system, that Miami is a hub for everything Cuba-related, and that the government has allowed Cubans to have internet access in recent years. I’d love to be able to report from inside the country, but even foreign journalists based there face a lot of government-imposed restrictions, so it’s not unusual that I am breaking Cuba news stories from Miami.”
Asked for her thoughts on the future of journalism, Nora states:
“Journalism is facing tremendous challenges. There are huge financial pressures, especially for local outlets, alarming distrust in traditional media, combined with a fragmentation of the audience, rampant disinformation circulating widely, and the emergence of a new figure, the influencer, who has no commitment to journalistic standards or digging into facts. Social media algorithms favour polarisation and opinions and reward content that drives engagement through exploiting anger or fear. The current environment is not favourable to professional journalists, to put it mildly. The decline is evident.”
In these challenging times, what keeps Nora Gámez Torres motivated as a journalist?
“I feel a responsibility to convey to American audiences what is happening in Cuba in the best possible way. It is particularly important in the sense that policymakers pay attention to what we publish at the Miami Herald. There is also the incredible opportunity just to be able to witness and oftentimes narrate history as it is made. Making an authoritarian government accountable, giving voice to those under political repression, and helping people facing an injustice, all of that makes this job very rewarding.”
Does she have any advice for those who want to build a career in journalism?
“This will sound somewhat blunt, but if you are not 100% committed, you should probably rethink your career choices. It is an incredibly demanding and stressful career (all of those deadlines!), competition is fierce, and the number of quality jobs is declining. That said, if you think you have what it takes, go for it. It’s also incredibly fun.”
Finally, what does she hope to achieve in the future?
“I’d love to take a pause and do more of the research and analytical work that the pace of academia allows for. But as a working mom in a demanding job, I just hope to hang in there and, in the meantime, keep writing stories that matter.”
A big congratulations to Dr Nora Gámez Torres for winning a 2025 Maria Moors Cabot Prizes Gold Medal. Thank you for sharing your story with us!