Helen Thomas: Journalists Need More Courage ("Bush is afraid of my questions")

With 57 years of White House reporting, Helen Thomas is commonly referred to as “The First Lady of the Press.” She talked to Adbusters associate editor Deborah Campbell about the state of journalism today.

Adbusters: You’ve had a front row seat on the White House press gallery since Kennedy, and now you’ve been moved to the back of the room . . .

Helen Thomas: Only for press conferences with Bush. He doesn’t want to call on me.

HT: I’m reluctant to personalize it. No president likes the press, period. But Bush in particular wants to sanitize who he talks to. They give him a list of reporters to call on – which I’ve never seen done before – and he sticks to the script. He’s afraid of my questions. On the one hand it makes me laugh, but it’s also sad. A president of the United States ought to be able to handle any question. If they can’t, then why are they there? My requests are very simple. Usually it’s like “why?” Why did you do it? What’s it all about? If you’re putting people’s lives at risk, you should be able to answer questions like that.

AB: Do you think the US press is tough enough on monitoring the centers of power at this point?

HT: No, I think they fell down on the job. But I sense that they’re getting their sea legs, gradually coming out of their coma in light of the hurricane and Karl Rove and a few other things. So they might get back to being real reporters again. I think they’re beginning to realize they let too many opportunities pass, that it’s okay to get angry and to really challenge, which is their job. Reporters represent the last frontier in terms of questioning public officials. If we don’t do it, it doesn’t happen.

AB: Do you recall a time or a moment in history when journalism was more heroic than it has been in recent years?

HT: Every other time but this time. And it’s because of 9/11. People wanted to be more patriotic and were afraid of rocking the boat. From there, we segued into a war where reporters were worried about jeopardizing the troops. So there was a heavy cloud and reporters had to fall in line for awhile. But they’re coming out of it, thank goodness.

HT: Fear. Lack of courage. You want to keep your job. Maybe some corporate heads are breathing down your neck. You’ve got to feed the family and send the kids to college. There might be financial reasons and others, and maybe some reporters genuinely feel they shouldn’t raise uncomfortable questions at a time when patriotism is demanded. But our job is to find out the truth. That’s our only job.

AB: At the moment it seems there are some cracks in the US foreign policy. Do you speculate as to where any of that is going?

HT: Well, I think that we’ve got to pull the troops out of Iraq. We’ve got to stop killing. This is ridiculous. It’s more than ridiculous, it’s tragic. Wanton killing, killing and being killed – for what? I think the administration wants to hang in there because they actually believe they can win. But I think that’s a long shot, if anything. And what is winning anyway? Winning what? A Shia theocracy? Is that what American soldiers are dying for? Furthermore, we’ve got to find out what terrorism is really about, find out the root causes. I think that it was right to go into Afghanistan and right to go after Bin Laden. But what about the bigger picture? Is it a religious war? Is it American policy that is motivating these people? What is it? Figure that out, and deal with it.

Ok. No pixs, but a bio.

Grand Inquisitor

White House diva Helen Thomas has grilled every president since JFK

The Washington, D.C. cabdriver couldn’t quite place her but knew that the passenger, a diminutive woman with short dark hair, was somebody important. Finally, the cabbie turned around and asked straight out: "Aren’t you the woman the presidents love to hate?"

Helen Thomas, who at age 82 is the indisputable dean of the White House press corps, tells that story on herself. For decades, she has posed the opening question at every presidential press conference, then closed the event by saying, "Thank you, Mr. President." As a correspondent and White House bureau chief for United Press International for most of her 60-year career, Thomas has been a journalistic thorn in the side of every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. "She has single-handedly gotten under the skin of every president since JFK," says Mike McCurry, press secretary during the Clinton years. As Gerald Ford once observed, Thomas practices a "finely balanced blend of journalism and acupuncture." Jacqueline Kennedy was less subtle: she referred to Thomas and her Associated Press counterpart as "the harpies."

But history has a way of arranging ironic rebuttals. For just as Jackie’s off-white silk chiffon inaugural gown now resides in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, so too do three of Thomas’ White House press passes, showcased in the "American Presidency" exhibit. "The press curbs presidential power," says curator Harry Rubenstein. "And Helen Thomas epitomizes the White House press corps."

Says Bob Deans, one of Thomas’ colleagues and the White House correspondent for Cox Newspapers: "She has great respect for the office of the presidency. But she is not intimidated by the person who temporarily inhabits the office." Thomas’ conduct of this epic adversarial relationship is unstinting, although she no longer works out of the UPI cubicle in the White House. She resigned from that organization in 2000, after the wire service changed ownership.Today, Thomas, who still occupies her traditional front-row seat in the briefing room, covers the White House in a column for the Hearst newspapers. Formal seat assignments notwithstanding, most spots are up for grabs. "But no one sits in Helen’s seat," says Martha Joynt Kumar, professor of political science at Towson University and an authority on the relationship between the press and the White House.

Thomas continues to attend daily briefings most mornings at the White House, and she also continues to decry the inevitable barriers between president and press. When she addressed the National Press Club in 2000, someone asked her which of the then eight presidents she had covered had allowed the greatest access. "None," she replied. "They are all difficult. Once they get in the White House, the iron curtain comes down. Everything is classified. The color of the walls—they would even classify that."

But over the past 50 years, Thomas has scaled a lot of other barriers: she was the first woman to be named White House bureau chief of a major wire service, the first to become a president of the White House Correspondents Association and the first woman member of the Gridiron Club. And she was the first woman to receive the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award. "I never aspired to be first," she once said. "Only to be there." But just being there was no mean feat for a female in the then male ranks of Washington journalism. "Helen has done more for the role of women in journalism," says Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "She was just always at the door saying, ‘I have a right to be here.’"

Thomas’ approach to her job—first to arrive, last to leave, high speed and tenacity at every moment in between—has left many a younger colleague in the dust and many a press secretary chuckling. (In some cases, the laughter came long after the fact.) "Every morning, I arrived at the White House and found her sitting on my credenza, waiting," Fitzwater recalls of Thomas’ legendary stakeouts. "You had to be prepared, because she was always there." So, too, for McCurry, whose workday invariably began with Thomas’ chirpy query: "What do you have for me?" McCurry’s standard rejoinder: "Helen! I just got to work. All I’ve got for you is a muffin and a cup of coffee!"

In the end, Thomas says, it all comes down to "enthusiasm, noisiness, energy and curiosity. You have to keep asking ‘Why?’"

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues03/jun03/object.html

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