I had the pleasure of meeting Helen Thomas on two different occasions: once was in the classroom; the other was in her arena otherwise known as The White House Press Briefing Room. While many are focusing on her legacy as a trailblazing female journalist, I would assert that Thomas’ real legacy is more a reflection on the downfall of journalism itself.
Thomas had a solid reporting career for more than six decades. She was THE reporter who asked the tough questions, followed the story, always reported “the facts” and ended every presidential press conference with, “Thank you Mr. President.” One time I asked Reagan and Bush (41) White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater about his worst day at The White House. He quipped, “Anytime I walked in to find Helen Thomas sitting outside my office door.”
By the time I first met Thomas in late 2007, it was clear she had changed. During the last weeks of my White House internship, I was given the opportunity to sit in and observe a live White House Press Briefing. Being the only kid in Pittsburgh who would run home from school to watch the briefings on C-SPAN, this was a dream come true.
I had known about Helen Thomas long before I ever came to Washington and had devoured her columns and books. But that day I was amazed at her behavior in the press room. This wasn’t the women who broke the gender barrier in journalism, or who covered every president since Kennedy. No this was a bitter, argumentative, combative old lady screaming at an administration official.
Several months later, I was formerly introduced to her through my undergraduate electronic journalism professor. He had been Helen’s former bureau chef at UPI and she was our guest professor for the day. I had the honor of the “first question” and asked her, “A lot of reporters no longer report the facts. They go on television and provide their opinions under the label of ‘political analysts.’ Is this practice ethical, or should reporters stick to the facts?”
She obviously didn’t like my question, and got the underlying subtext.
Without missing a beat she fired back, “NO! More opinion columnists should come down to The White House and see how it’s done! You know they’re all crooked (the presidents). They come to office and never fulfill their promises.”
However, it would be wrong to ignore that her career, which once practiced the gold standard of journalism, devolved into the opinion based reporting that currently poisons our media. Furthermore, that the lowering of her professional standards occurred at a time when the public’s trust and faith in the media sunk to an all-time low. There’s not a doubt in my mind that’s due to the movement from “political reporters” to “political analysts.”
This to me this is the real legacy of Helen Thomas. At a time when the nation needed solid reporters chasing the facts, she deserted journalism.
Helen Thomas was 92 years old.
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