[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 130 (Wednesday, August 1, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S5554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              A FREE PRESS

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, a free, independent press is vital to our 
democracy. It is enshrined in our Constitution. We need tenacious, 
dedicated journalists, who will afflict the comfortable and comfort the 
afflicted, to ask tough questions, to challenge special interests, to 
connect Americans with their communities. That is why I joined my 
colleagues this week on a resolution condemning this administration's 
awful, vicious, demagogic attacks on reporters--including the decision 
last week to bar a reporter from attending a White House event just 
because the White House didn't like the questions she asked--with the 
repeated labeling of the free press as ``enemies of the people.''
  Watch the video from last night. Watch the video in Florida from last 
night where the President egged on, egged on, and egged on his 
supporters to start screaming at newspaper reporters and other 
reporters--people who are doing their jobs.
  In spite of this President using Stalinist language--I am just 
reading a book right now written by a Stalinist translator, and this 
book talks about a lot of the language Stalin used. He called people 
``enemies of the people.'' That is Communist talk. That is Stalinist 
talk. Yet this President calls reporters who get up every day and do 
their jobs--most of them not paid very well, frankly--the enemy of the 
people. They do vital work not just in Washington but throughout the 
country.
  I would like to take a moment to highlight one of them. I am going to 
come to this floor every so often in the weeks and months ahead, and I 
am going to talk about a local reporter--a reporter who gets up every 
day, who probably doesn't make more than $20,000 or $30,000 a year. In 
many cases it is a little more than that, but reporters are generally 
not particularly well-paid people. I want to talk about the important 
work that local Ohio journalists do. Some of them I have met; others I 
haven't met but I have observed, because I know how important they are 
to their communities. I will start doing this on a regular basis 
because in this town today, with this administration, with this 
President of the United States--I still can't believe a President of 
the United States engages in talk like Stalin--the Soviet Stalin--
calling American citizens who get up every day and do their job and do 
their job to the best of their ability ``enemies of the people,'' and 
he tries to get the crowds he speaks to, the people he addresses, to 
chime in and call them ``enemies of the people'' and start calling 
those reporters names.
  I want this floor message that I am going to do from time to time to 
be a constant reminder of how reporters contribute to their 
communities.
  Last week, the Daily Jeffersonian in eastern Ohio ran a story on the 
upcoming Firemen's Festival in Caldwell, OH, a town in Appalachia, 
reported by a local reporter named Austin Erickson. It is the local 
fire department's biggest fundraiser of the year. They rely on the 
proceeds in part because of the corruption in State government where 
State government doesn't fund local communities like they used to for a 
whole bunch of reasons, but this fire department relies on the proceeds 
of the Fireman's Festival to fund daily maintenance, testing, and 
safety gear of their firefighters.
  Mr. Erickson talked to the festival's chairman, who pointed to the 
fire department and told the reporter: ``If it's in those four walls, 
it's from that festival.'' In other words, if it weren't for this 
festival, we wouldn't have the fire equipment we need.
  Through its work, the Daily Jeffersonian and local reporters like Mr. 
Erickson are informing their communities about ways to support local 
firefighters and responders who keep them safe. If people like Mr. 
Erickson of the Daily Jeffersonian in Cambridge, OH, were not writing 
these stories, were not reporting on the Fireman's Festival, not as 
many people would go or understand it. They spend their hard-earned 
money there. It helps their local communities. It helps their fire 
department.
  Enemies of the People? If the President would listen and see what 
these reporters do every day, maybe he would stop the demagoguery. 
Maybe he would stop calling people names. Maybe he would stop calling 
his own Attorney General names. Maybe he would stand up to Putin who 
clearly--that is a whole other story. I won't get into that.
  Let's go back to these local reporters and what journalists do every 
day and what Mr. Erickson does. It is what newspapers all over Ohio--
from my hometown paper, the Mansfield News Journal, the paper where my 
wife used to work, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Columbus Dispatch, 
the Cincinnati Enquirer, a smaller paper, the News-Herald, the Lorain 
Journal--I could go on and on and on, paper after paper after paper.
  Journalists wake up every day and do their jobs. They serve their 
communities, and they serve their country. They are not enemies of the 
people. I just pray to God that the President of the United States will 
stop that kind of talk.

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