Weiner Praises New York Sun on House Floor

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of New York, delivered the following remarks about The New York Sun on the floor of the House of Representatives last night.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a great deal of discussion about New York institutions, great institutions that have been around for a very long time, frankly, succumbing to the economic pressures, bad regulation, misfortune. But we are in a perilously close position in New York to losing another great New York institution, and that is the newspaper The New York Sun, which has been operating for the better part of seven years now. It isn't often that someone in our line of work rises to pay tribute to a periodical, particularly one that is frequently quite critical of those of us in public life.

But the Sun is a unique New York institution. It is arguably the only newspaper — frankly, the only outlet in New York City right now — that's truly covering civic affairs in New York, and doing a very good job of covering civic affairs here in Washington and around the world.

For the purpose of making these remarks, I just grabbed at random a copy of the Sun recently, and pulled out this copy from September 8. And I defy any of my colleagues to find a publication in their part of the world, and even the ones that are best known — the New York Times, the Boston Globe, any of them that has coverage comparable to The New York Sun.

Right here is coverage of how Russian war games have begun in the Caribbean, with a long description of how the Monroe Doctrine is entangled. Coverage by E.B. Solomont on health care, talking about the challenges facing children's health care in New York and around the country. Conversation about arts and fashion — the Arts section of the Sun provides arts coverage second to no one. They even found some time to put on the front page coverage of sports, Brett Favre's beginning of his career with the New York Jets.

Now, you might be thinking, well, this must be a newspaper that's been particularly kind to my point of view. Maybe the editorial page has been particularly kind to the values that I share. And very often, if not most of the time, I disagree with their editorial page. But it is always erudite and thorough, and gives us a great deal to think about.

Not long ago, many readers were shocked to find out what frankly we're learning about in a lot of newspapers around the country: It's fallen onto hard times financially. Well, there are many ways that we are going to be called upon to participate in our civic life in this election year. Obviously, first and foremost among them is we're going to be asked to vote. But one of the things that all citizens in New York can do, and for those of you who have access to the Internet, you can go to nysun.com and take a look at the newspaper online.

One of the things we all can do is engage in our civic debate well-armed with some facts about the issues of the day. There's no better place to get it than The New York Sun. You know, it really is, perhaps it's old media, but it's good, old-fashioned substantive civic engagement with a balanced coverage and smart coverage. You are going to find things in the Sun that frankly the other newspapers gloss over, the other papers pay no attention to.

I recently got a lot of attention and perhaps snickering by referring to how tabloidy a lot of the broadsheet newspapers have become in New York City, and I singled out the New York Times for that treatment. Well, frankly, if all newspapers had the level of thoroughness and the level of sophistication and the level of respect that it showed to readers that the Sun does, I think that frankly the debate in New York City and around the country would be a lot better off. This is volume 124, no. 101. I don't know exactly what those numbers mean, but hopefully for years to come, New Yorkers, American citizens of all stripes, will be able to pick up this newspaper, and I think they'll be better for it.

And while I have the microphone, I should say to any of their editorial page that are listening, you're wrong about 90% of the time, and hopefully you'll get better over the course of the next seven years. But by all means, I'm not going to stop reading, and I would encourage all of my neighbors to do the same, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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The speaker pro tempore:

Members are reminded to address their remarks to the chair.