Alan Gross

MSNBC.com Writer Hails Obama-Castro Handshake
By Ken Shepherd | December 10, 2013 | 4:52 PM EST

Alan Gross, political prisoner. Those were four words missing from Emma Margolin's December 10 MSNBC.com story hailing the handshake between President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro earlier today at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Soweto, South Africa. Gross, a State Department contractor, has been languishing in a Cuban prison for five years.

There was a reference to "genocide" in the story, but that was from a quote from a Cuban official railing against the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba (emphasis mine):

Daily Beast Notes 6 Americans Imprisoned in Iran, North Korea, Cuba During Obama's Tenure
By Ken Shepherd | December 6, 2013 | 5:20 PM EST

Kudos to the Daily Beast for running a feature today on six Americans who are detained in despotic regimes across the globe -- one in Cuba, the others in North Korea or Iran -- all of them held since President Obama took office in January 2009.

Writer Brandy Zadrozny noted she was writing her feature on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of Alan Gross's imprisonment in Cuba. Among those men is Saeed Abedini, a Christian minister who is serving an 8-year sentence in "Rajai Shahr Prison, notorious for its brutal treatment of inmates."