Five Minutes with Helen Thomas

By Elana Berkowitz, Campus Progress. Posted March 6, 2006.

[This interview appeared originally on Campus Progress.]

Helen Thomas has been an iconic face in the White House press room for decades. She covered an unprecedented nine presidential administrations while gaining a reputation as a thoughtful, tough reporter. While working for United Press International for 57 years, Thomas took on the boys' club of political journalism, becoming the only female print journalist to travel with President Nixon to China and the first woman to hold posts in the White House Correspondents' Association and the National Press Club. Though Thomas proudly sat in the front row of the press room for decades, she was moved to the back in 2003 by a Bush Administration that she frequently peppered with critical and challenging questions, and has been called on less and less frequently because, she speculates, "they didn't like me … I ask too mean questions." She is now a regular columnist for Hearst.

Campus Progress sat down recently with the "first lady of the press" over a cup of very black coffee to talk about women journalists, comparing wars, and undying curiosity.

Campus Progress: Do you have any advice for young journalists?

Helen Thomas: Oh, go for it! It's the greatest profession in the world. And you should view it as public service--when you are informing the American people, you are doing the greatest thing because you cannot have a democracy without an informed people. It is an education every day. I only feel sorry for those who had to leave it to put the kids through college. But I think once you get hooked on being in journalism you will never, never, ever feel the same way. I've seen so many reporters look back in longing for the days when they were starving to death, working 14, 15 hours a day, going to offices where they walk up four flights of rickety steps, and they loved every minute. I just think it takes great dedication. And the pay is too low, the hours are too long--but you never leave when the story's breaking, and stories never break on your time.

CP: In the last couple of years, aspiring journalists have seen many professional journalists censoring themselves and avoiding asking the tough questions.

HT: I think that there's a real deterioration in journalism. Unfortunately, everybody with a laptop thinks they're a journalist today. They don't have any professionalism, they don't have any standards, and we have been infiltrated by that. Plus there is the corporatization of all the media companies. It's a tragedy to have one-newspaper towns with no competition, and having the media broadcast outlets think that entertainment is more important than the issues. So I think that the profession is changing radically, and it has not commended itself very well in the last year in terms of plagiarism, fabrication and so forth. So I think they have to do a lot of soul-searching, but I'd say that the preponderance of reporters are very dedicated to the values and standards of accuracy and honesty and credibility. One thing about this profession: you do not last long if you make a big mistake, because our report cards are on the front page every day.

CP: You covered the White House for a very long time--which presidents and presidential press secretaries do you think were the most honest and forthcoming?

HT: Which president? None. Some press secretaries really tried to wear two hats--you have to be a schizophrenic. On one hand, you're speaking for the President of the United States, for the whole federal government, for the American people and on it goes. That's one hat. The other hat is to speak to the reporters who are but a transmission belt to the American people. I think much depends on how much a president wants the American people to know. This Bush administration is the most secretive I have ever covered, and I think the most secretive in American history since the time presidents have been covered.

All presidents think that most information involving government and the White House belongs to them, to their domain, and I think it belongs in the public. I don't think they should have these secrets--I think it's unconscionable the hold they have. I mean, I didn't know the Brits ran any ports until this started! And it's all decided by a secret committee that decides whether we sell our ports? This is a shock to me, and I think I'm so dumb to have not known that. But why didn't I know it? Because it's not been on the public record at all.

Well, back to the thing: I think that the greatest press secretary was Jerald terHorst. He served for one month with President Ford. He had been a newspaper man in this town, for Detroit news, for 29 years--he knew everybody and everybody knew him. He was a man of trust.

He was appointed press secretary by President Ford who was a sudden president, and he was saying "the long national nightmare is over," Nixon resigned. While Jerry was serving, he got a call from a couple of newspaper colleagues and friends on a Friday and they told him that there were rumors that President Ford sent emissaries to San Clemente and that they were working on negotiating a pardon for Nixon. He went to the counsel of the White House, who is the chief lawyer, and he was told that was not true. Jerry came back and told the reporters no, nothing to it. Then on Saturday, I think, he got the word from Ford that he was going to pardon President Nixon and he was so devastated.

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