Brown speaks out after Trump’s NBC remarks

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown spoke out Thursday on the value of a free press in America.

In remarks delivered on the Senate floor, Brown said, “A journalist’s entire job is to ask tough questions and to challenge powerful interests.”

“While in church, we comfort the afflicted; journalists afflict the confortable,” Brown said.

Brown’s remarks came, following comments earlier in the day, in which President Trump threatened to revoke the broadcast license of NBC over a news story on his administration.

On Wednesday, NBC reported Trump had indicated in a July meeting at the White House that he wanted to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ten times its size.

On Thursday, Trump, who once starred in a reality TV show on the network, took issue with the story and suggested the possibility of government retaliation at NBC.

“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a “tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!” Trump posted on Twitter. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”

Later in the day, in a meeting with reporters at the White House, Trump said, “It’s frankly disgusting, the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it”

Though Trump, when asked, then said he opposed limits on what the press can report.
“No. The press should speak more honestly,” he said.

In his Senate remarks, Brown cited the dangers journalists face covering stories.

“Reporters put their safety and, far too often, their lives, on the line, whether it’s covering floods and hurricanes at home or traversing the globe to bring us the stories of our troops,” he said. “We depend on reporters in Ohio and around the world to bring us the stories that impact our day to day lives or tell us the stories we might not otherwise be told.”

Brown said a functioning media is needed by the nation.

“Supporting a vibrant, independent, proactive press corps has rarely been more important in our country,” Brown said. “Yet, too often, we see reporters restricted vilified, attacked even physically threatened all for doing the jobs for which they were hired.”