The publication is reproduced in full below:
IN RECOGNITION OF WAYNE FREEDMAN
______
HON. JACKIE SPEIER
of california
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Wayne Freedman, one of the Bay Area's most intrepid television reporters and a fixture on ABC 7 for 30 years who is retiring after a remarkable and award-winning career.
Wayne has covered a vast variety of events here at home and abroad, from major earthquakes, fires, and hurricanes, to national and local elections, to major sports events, to the September 11th attacks, to the COVID-19 pandemic, to NASA space missions, to beached whales. In 1992, ABC 7 sent him solo to Moscow to cover Russia's Second Revolution. He traveled across the U.S. by train visiting small towns to capture the pulse of America after 9/11. No matter the content of a story, Wayne will get to the truth and he has a knack for finding the human angle that resonates with viewers. He likes to put it this way:
``My philosophy is to find, small stories within large ones, and large stories in the small ones. Those are the most telling.''
His philosophy and work have earned him over 50 Emmy Awards and several Edward R. Murrow awards. Many of his pieces were picked up by ABC's national show World News Tonight. Wayne is also the author of a book that is required reading in several college journalism programs in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, It Takes More Than Good Looks To Succeed at Television News Reporting.
Television is part of the Freedman family's DNA. Wayne's father, Mike Freedman, started working for the ABC network in 1948. He pioneered the use of live, hand-held video cameras for covering news and sports events. As soon as Wayne could walk, his dad took him into the field with him.
Wayne had his first byline in 1968 when he started writing a weekly column about life in middle school for a paper that is now the Los Angeles Daily News. That same summer he worked in San Francisco as a grip for ABC on a profile about heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston.
Wayne received his Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from UCLA in 1977 and his Master's Degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1978. In 1981 he moved to San Francisco from where he has been reporting ever since. Before he joined ABC 7 in 1991, he worked for CBS News traveling the country to produce a weekly segment called Only in America for CBS This Morning.
For those who have seen Wayne Freedman reporting out in the field, they will have noticed an ever-present still camera in his hand with which he snaps behind the scenes photographs that he posts on social media. It's an eye-opening way to see the world from Wayne's perspective.
Wayne and his wife Susan live in Marin County. They are the proud parents of daughter Lauren who lives in New York.
Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the House of Representatives to rise with me to recognize Wayne Freedman for his lifelong passion for storytelling and his ability to transfer that passion to his viewers. He is an outstanding journalist who has thrived throughout decades of changes in the journalism profession.
While we will miss his booming voice and captivating presence on our TV screens and smart phones, we wish him well in his well-deserved retirement.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 158
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
House Representatives' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
Alerts Sign-up