[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 72 (Wednesday, June 5, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




A TRIBUTE TO BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER KAREN HOSLER: A GOOD JOURNALIST, A 
                              GOOD FRIEND

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 4, 2002

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to my friend, 
Karen Hosler, an outstanding reporter at the Baltimore Sun.
  Over three decades, Karen has chronicled the political system from 
small town Maryland to the Nation's Capital, with the Sun as her outlet 
since 1977.
  She and I have traveled through Maryland state and national politics 
together, although on different sides of the street as reporter and 
politician.
  We both graduated from the University of Maryland, albeit a number of 
years apart.
  After a short stint as a staffer on Capitol Hill, she began her 
career as a journalist covering county government and politics at a 
weekly newspaper in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, the Prince 
George's County News, shortly after my own career in politics had begun 
in that county as a state senator.
  The first time that we met I was a little bit less than friendly to 
the new reporter at the Prince George's County News. I was frustrated 
by an unbalanced story written by her predecessor just before the 
election. But Karen held her ground and we embarked on a relationship 
based on respect for the other's role in the democratic process that 
eventually would become a friendship.
  Three years later, she joined the staff of a historic daily newspaper 
in Maryland's capital city of Annapolis, the Capital. Karen covered 
state politics, including the governor and the state legislature, for 
the Capital from 1974 to 1977 which matched my election to the 
presidency of the Maryland State Senate in 1975.
  She was always a tough interrogator of a politician. She asked the 
hard questions that we didn't always like to answer, but she always got 
it out of us. Karen asked not just what but why. She took her 
responsibility as a reporter very seriously and her readers were the 
better for it. They were better informed and better able to make 
judgments about their representatives, their government and its 
policies.
  In 1977, Karen joined the Sun, one of our country's preeminent 
newspapers. She began at the Sun where she originally started her 
career--covering local government.
  Two years later, she was back in Annapolis covering politics and 
state government.
  In 1983, Karen moved from Annapolis politics to national politics--
after four years on the state political beat, Karen was assigned to 
cover the Maryland congressional delegation on Capitol Hill. I had been 
elected to Congress in a special election two years before.
  For the next twenty years, she reported from Washington for the Sun 
from numerous vantage points, while I worked hard to represent the 
Fifth Congressional District well, and our paths crossed often.
  After five years of following the congressional delegation she moved 
to the White House. Five years later, in 1993, she was back on Capitol 
Hill as the national congressional correspondent. I was in my fourth 
year as Chairman of the Democratic Caucus.
  In 1998 she became the acting Deputy Washington Bureau Chief 
directing national, international and Washington regional coverage 
until January 1999, when she returned to the national political beat.
  Now, after thirty years of outstanding political reporting at all 
levels, Karen is leaving her friends and colleagues in Washington to 
join the Sun's editorial board in Baltimore.
  Karen will bring to the Editorial Board a perspective shaped by three 
decades of observation and analysis of every level of government.
  Thomas Jefferson, who both used the press to proselytize and suffered 
under opponents' vicious attacks delivered through newspapers, said the 
following: ``. . . were it left to me to decide whether we should have 
a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I 
should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.''
  Jefferson knew that the press is an essential cog in democracy's 
engine, without which our country would not enjoy the quality of 
government and freedoms it has. It is the men and women behind the 
newsprint who perform the vital role of examiner of government and act 
as a crucial source of information for citizens.
  Without the hard work and intellect of reporters and editors the 
vaunted principle of the freedom of the press would surely wither and 
die.
  Karen Hosler, as one such reporter, has contributed immensely to 
educating the citizenry on local, state and national politics 
throughout her career at the Baltimore Sun.
  I have great respect for Karen, the journalist, who through her 
political reporting has done more than her share to keep our democracy 
vital. And, as her friend, I wish her great success in the exciting new 
challenge on which she now embarks.
  I wish Karen Hosler the best of luck in her new position at the Sun, 
where she will have a broader opportunity than ever before to shape 
opinion and inform her readers.

                          ____________________