Helen Thomas
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Helen Thomas (born August 4, 1920) is a news service reporter and a member of the White House press corps. She was White House Bureau Chief for United Press International (UPI), where she was employed for 57 years until resigning in May 17, 2000 when UPI was acquired by News World Communications. News World owns The Washington Times; Thomas stated she resigned because of News World's ties to Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Thomas then became a White House correspondent and King Features Syndicate (Hearst Corporation) columnist.
Thomas has covered every President since John F. Kennedy. Born in Winchester, Kentucky, Helen was raised in Detroit, Michigan where she attended public schools and later graduated from Wayne State University. Upon leaving college, she served as a copy girl on the now-defunct Washington Daily News.
After joining UPI in 1943, Thomas wrote radio news and later covered Federal government news; her beats included the FBI and Capitol Hill.
In November, 1960, Helen began covering then President-elect John F. Kennedy, following him to the White House in January, 1961 as a UPI correspondent. During this assignment, Thomas became known for closing presidential press conferences with the tagline "Thank you, Mr. President."
Thomas was the only woman print journalist to travel with then-President Richard M. Nixon to China during his breakthrough trip in January, 1972. She has traveled around the world several times with Presidents Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and has covered every Economic Summit. In November 1976, she was named one of the "25 Most Influential Women in America" by the World Almanac.
Helen Thomas has written three books, including her latest, Thanks for the Memories Mr. President: Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at the White House.
Beginning in 2003, Thomas has been moved to the back row during press conferences, although she still sits in the front row during press briefings. She is rarely called upon in press conferences, and no longer ends Presidential news conferences by saying "Thank you, Mr. President." Asked why she is now seated in the back row, she said, "Because they don't like me...I ask too mean questions." [1] On March 21, 2006, during a White House press conference, Thomas was called upon directly by President Bush for the first time in three years, leading to a spirited exchange between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Bush.[2]
In July 2005 Thomas was quoted in the newspaper The Hill [3] saying "The day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is one more liar." Thomas added, "I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does." Several days later, Thomas expressed outrage at The Hill for publishing her comments. [4]
In a November 2002 talk at MIT, Thomas revealed: "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'" Two months later, the answer to that question revealed itself in an off-the-record comment to a reporter from the Torrance, California Daily Breeze following the Society of Professional Journalists annual awards banquet. "This is the worst President ever. He is the worst President in all of American history." The Breeze ran the quote. Around the third week of March 2006, she was discussed a lot in the news after asking the president about the reason for the War in Iraq.
She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1986.
Her niece, Suzanne Geha, is an anchor at WOOD-TV the NBC television station in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Bibliography
- Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President : Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at the White House (Scribner, 2003) ISBN 0743202260
- Front Row at the White House : My Life and Times (Scribner, 2000) ISBN 0684868091