[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 86 (Thursday, May 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2318-S2319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, freedom of the press is a fundamental 
human right, a foundational pillar of democracy, and an indispensable 
check on authoritarian overreach. Over the past months, as we have 
collectively come to appreciate a new understanding of ``essential 
workers,'' we have witnessed once again how essential the work 
journalists do is to maintaining our democracy. From Wuhan, China, to 
conflict zones in Venezuela, to cities and towns in the United States, 
journalists are risking their lives to report, investigate, and keep 
people informed on the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, responses to 
this global crisis have also reminds us that press freedom is under 
assault across the globe, including in the United States. Fearful of 
negative coverage of their capacity to protect their citizens and 
address a global health crisis, autocrats and other governmental 
figures around the world have focused their attention on concealing 
information. As journalists fight to advance truth and objectivity 
under dire circumstances, far too many governments have responded with 
verbal attacks and prison sentences. Today, we applaud the work and the 
courage of all those involved in bringing stories from around the world 
to our fingertips.
  Amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across the 
world from Algeria to Zimbabwe have imposed restrictions and threatened 
journalists for their work. As they do when credible, reliable, and 
timely information is an essential commodity, journalists have 
persisted.
  In China, in an effort to educate his community and the world about 
its potential threat, Chen Qiushi documented the impacts of the COVID-
19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, in dozens of videos online. On February 6, 
2020, Chen's family and friends lost contact with him, and he is 
presumed to have been disappeared by the CCP.
  In Niger, journalist Kaka Touda Mamne Goni reported on a suspected 
COVID-19 case, was arrested by police on March 5, 2020, and faces up to 
3 years in prison on charges of ``dissemination of data likely to 
disturb the public order.''
  In Venezuela, a group of masked police agents detained freelance 
journalist Darvinson Rojas on March 21, 2020, and interrogated Rojas 
about his reporting on COVID-19 cases in the state of Miranda. Rojas 
remains in detention.
  While the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred new restrictions and 
harassment, these stories of abuse and resilience are nothing new in 
the field of journalism. Since 1992, the Committee to Project 
Journalists has reported 1,369 journalists killed around the world, 
including at least 25 killed in 2019. Last year also represented the 
14th year in a row that Freedom House has noted a global decline in 
press freedom. As of April 20, 2020, at least 299 journalists were 
imprisoned for their work worldwide.
  Of course, the global decline in press freedom and access is not 
limited to foreign lands. In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic 
has accelerated the struggle of local news organizations to stay 
afloat. The shuttering of local print publications has left rural 
populations and marginalized communities without critical sources of 
information and has chipped away at the foundation of the U.S. free 
press.
  From the White House, President Trump continues to target journalists 
and the media, referring to journalism as ``an evil propaganda 
machine'' and the free press as the ``enemy of the people.'' Most 
recently and severely, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump 
administration restricted most on-the-record access to administration 
officials and reportedly instructed all officials, including scientific 
and medical experts, to have public statements cleared through Vice 
President Pence.
  This episode is unfortunately the latest in an ongoing saga. 
Countries around the world have followed President Trump's lead in 
attacking journalism as ``fake news.'' Between January 2017 and May 
2019, at least 26 countries have enacted or introduced laws restricting 
access and media in the name of ``fake news.'' In attacking the media, 
President Trump not only undermines the hard-hitting work journalists 
in the United States do to hold our leaders accountable and keep the 
public informed, but provides foreign leaders with the permission and 
vocabulary to do the same.
  In spite of the unprecedented assault on the free press, journalists 
continue to take significant risks in the pursuit of truth and 
transparency. In January 2020, the International Consortium of 
Investigative Journalists revealed how Isabel dos Santos amassed one of 
Africa's largest fortunes in Angola, one of the world's poorest 
countries, through embezzlement and corruption using a network of 
companies and subsidiaries. In May 2019, Caixin journalists reported on 
business and government actions that resulted in the 2019 Jiangsu 
Tianjiayi Chemical Plant explosion in China that killed 78 people and 
injured over 600. Journalists have also continued to report on the 
situation of Uyghurs and other minorities held in detention centers in 
China's Xinjiang region, including new revelations from hundreds of 
pages of leaked CCP documents published by the New York Times in 
November 2019.
  I join the international community in honoring and defending the 
brave journalists seeking to report on the truth and tell the stories 
that deserve to be told. Over 200 years ago, our Founding Fathers had 
the foresight to recognize the importance of a free press to a 
democracy, enshrining it in our First Amendment. Today, that importance 
cannot be overstated. Recognizing that societies where informed 
citizens can hold their governments accountable are more stable, 
secure, and prosperous, we have a responsibility to stand up for the 
fundamental rights of freedom of expression and a free press.
  This week, I introduced a resolution commemorating World Press 
Freedom Day. The resolution highlights increasing threats to freedoms 
of the press and expression worldwide, especially amid the COVID-19 
pandemic, reaffirms the centrality of a free and independent press to 
the health of democracy, and reiterates freedom of the press as a 
priority of the United States in promoting democracy, human rights, and 
good governance. On this World Press Freedom Day, I call on the Trump 
administration and our world leaders to recommit to advancing press 
freedom, protecting journalists, and embracing the important role they 
play in a healthy and secure society.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I rise to commemorate World Press 
Freedom Day, which was this past Sunday, and to celebrate the brave 
journalists all over the world who safeguard the values of truth, 
democracy, transparency, and justice through their work. Every year, we 
set aside this day to reaffirm our commitment to the free press. This 
year, however, is a little bit different. This year, we are in the 
midst of a brutal global public health crisis. One of the reasons that 
the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked so much havoc--taking hundreds of 
thousands of lives and devastating the economy--is that people with 
power have propagated misinformation about the virus. In the words of 
the World Health Organization, we are witnessing an ``info-demic.'' 
Now, more than ever, it is vital that the public receives the truth, 
and that means protecting the

[[Page S2319]]

free press. We are relying on the press to bring us crucial, often 
life-saving, information about testing sites, shelter-in-place orders, 
school closures, government aid, and how to keep ourselves and our 
loved ones safe. That is why many States, Maryland among them, have 
designated local news outlets as ``essential businesses'' that are 
allowed to keep operating despite social distancing policies.
  In a noble effort to keep the public informed, many local media 
outlets have removed their paywalls for COVID-19-related news, 
forfeiting desperately needed revenue. Meanwhile, COVID-19 continues to 
place immense economic pressure on local news outlets and jeopardize 
their ability to function at all. Dozens of local publications have had 
to furlough reporters, reduce their publication frequency, or drop 
their print editions completely. This financial nightmare comes on the 
heels of more than a decade of hardship for local news.
  Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is not the only threat facing 
journalists today. All around the globe, reporters face harassment and 
persecution for their attempts to spread the truth and hold leaders 
accountable. Reporters Without Borders has determined that at least 229 
journalists worldwide currently are imprisoned for their work. 
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 25 
journalists were killed around the world in 2019, and at least six 
journalists and media professionals have been killed in the first 4 
months of 2020 alone. Corrupt and powerful governments and individuals 
understand that free expression is a mighty tool against injustice, so 
they go to horrible lengths to stifle it.
  One courageous reporter who was murdered for pursuing the truth was 
Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. The 
Central Intelligence Agency concluded with high confidence and the 
Senate unanimously approved a resolution stating that Saudi Government 
officials executed and dismembered Mr. Khashoggi in 2018 at the behest 
of Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman. To this day, 
however, justice for this crime remains elusive. The Global Magnitsky 
Act, which I authored with the late Senator John McCain to combat human 
rights violations like this one, requires the U.S. administration to 
declassify its findings regarding who was responsible for Mr. 
Khashoggi's death and to impose additional sanctions on the culpable 
parties. President Trump has refused to do so.
  This failure to stand up for an American journalist an authoritarian 
regime silenced is just one example of how the Trump administration has 
turned its back on the freedom of the press. The President and his 
supporters have continuously tried to demonize and delegitimize news 
outlets whose reporting upsets them, to the point of labeling the media 
an ``enemy of the American people.'' As the illustrious journalist 
Edward R. Murrow so famously noted 66 years ago in responding to then-
Senator Joe McCarthy's vile smear tactics and intimidation:

       We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must 
     remember always that accusation is not proof and that 
     conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We 
     will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven 
     by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our 
     history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not 
     descended from fearful men--not from men who feared to write, 
     to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for 
     the moment, unpopular.

  When the leader of the United States, a country devoted to principles 
of liberty and democracy, flouts the truth in this way, it reverberates 
all across the world to the detriment of free expression everywhere. 
Between 2016 and 2019, the number of journalists imprisoned on spurious 
charges of disseminating so-called fake news more than tripled 
globally.
  We Americans feel the impact of this vilification of the press much 
closer to home, too. I will never forget learning about the fatal 
shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, MD, almost 2 years ago. 
In the most deadly newsroom shooting in American history, a man who was 
angry that the newspaper accurately and merely reported his guilty plea 
in a criminal harassment case stormed into the Gazette office with a 
gun and killed five people. Those individuals--Gerald Fishman, Rob 
Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendi Winters--died 
defending one of the most sacred institutions in our country. They died 
protecting every American's right to know the truth. But they and 
hundreds of other journalists worldwide should not have to die in the 
line of duty.
  For the sake of our democracy and global human rights, we must do 
everything we can to eliminate the violence and repression news media 
face. The United States can help lead this effort by loudly voicing our 
support for the free press as a key component of an informed civil 
society and a government accountable to its people. That is why I am 
proud to cosponsor Senator Menendez's resolution in honor of World 
Press Freedom Day declaring the need for a truly free press and 
condemning threats to the freedom of expression around the world. The 
resolution applauds the bravery of journalists and media workers and 
remembers those who have lost their lives in the course of their 
duties.
  We can also demonstrate our commitment to a free press by remembering 
those journalists and media professionals who have lost their lives in 
the course of their duties. To that end, Senator Portman and I have 
introduced a bill, S. 1969, to authorize a national memorial to fallen 
journalists. The National Capital Region has numerous monuments and 
memorials to honor those individuals who have helped make our country 
stronger since its founding days. Currently missing from that honor 
roll is a memorial to reporters and other journalists, such as those at 
the Capital Gazette, who have sacrificed everything to protect the 
free, open, and transparent society that all people deserve. My hope is 
that Congress will pass the Fallen Journalists Memorial Act soon. Once 
we establish this memorial, we will have a visible reminder to pay 
tribute to these heroes not just once a year, but every day.

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