by Jenny Warburg and Linda Belans
In the wake of veteran reporter Helen Thomas’s resignation from the White House Press Corps after her controversial comments, photojournalist Jenny Warburg and urban educational leader Linda Belans honor Thomas’s trailblazing career as a journalist.
As has been heavily documented in the news recently, Congressman Bob Etheridge was approached by two college journalism students: “Hi. How are you? Do you fully support the Obama agenda?” The camera shows Etheridge physically manhandling one student while interrogating him about his identity.
The whole thing lasted about the same amount of time that Helen Thomas was captured on camera with a controversial answer to a question posed by a Rabbi and two young aspiring journalists about Israel. The difference? Etheridge is being forgiven. Helen Thomas was forced to retire. Words are indeed mightier than the sword.
Within a couple of hours, Etheridge issued an apology. Thomas issued an apology, too, but no one from the White House applauded her for it as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs did when he said, “I’ve known Bob Etheridge for more than thirteen years [...] He is one of the most honorable people I know, and I’m proud of Bob for taking responsibility and apologizing.”
We agree that Bob Etheridge is an honorable man. We wish that Gibbs and the White House would have acknowledged the same traits in Helen Thomas after her apology. With Etheridge, Gibbs anchored his response in the Congressman’s history; there was no such mention of Helen Thomas’ equally honorable history.
Thomas, who featured in the 1967 “World Almanac’s 25 Most Influential Women in America,” has been outspoken throughout her coverage of all 10 presidents beginning with JFK. She has been uncompromising in speaking truth to power. She served as an uncomfortable mirror to most of the White House press corps’ silent acceptance of what they were fed, most notably concerning the Iraq war. And she never gave up. Yet we fear this grand finale by a grande dame of journalism is what will, from here forward, always follow the comma after her name.
We’re not here to pass judgment on Thomas’ most recent comments or defend her politics. Instead, as women journalists, we offer an appreciation for the 89-year-old game-changer, a woman of firsts who blazed the trail for all us who have followed.
Helen Thomas spent 57 years at United Press International, roughly half of it serving as White House bureau chief. She was the National Press Club’s first female officer; the first female president of the White House Correspondents’ Association; the first female member of the Gridiron Club and the only female print reporter on Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972. She has traveled the world with all US presidents since then and covered every Economic Summit since 1975. Famous for her front row seat in the briefing room, she held every president’s feet to the fire, no matter the party: most recently relentlessly grilling Bush to tell the truth about his justification for the Iraq war, then pressing Obama to prove that his foreign policy is actually different from his predecessors.
Fidel Castro was once asked to define the difference between democracy in Cuba and the in United States. “I don’t have to answer questions from Helen Thomas,” he said.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author alone and do not represent WMC. WMC is a 501(c)(3) organization and does not endorse candidates.
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Bob Garfield concluded last week’s (June 11, 2010) On The Media program with a balanced, thoughtful, and respectful paean to Helen Thomas’s career and the impact that it (and she) had on journalism and generations of reporters. It’s well worth a listen — you can find it at http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/06/11/05.
Sorry, but I don’t see the connection. An assault, precipitated by who knows what, can always be taken up in a courtroom, if that is warranted. But a racist or anti-Zionist comment is a result of a long held attitude. Why should Helen Thomas, or anyone in such a high position be able to say, “Oops. Sorry”. And why should I, whose family was involved in the holocaust (many murdered in the camps) say, ” Oh, okay Helen “. You mis-spoke, and I forgive you”. It’s just not that simple. And this comment is from a longtime admirer of the outspoken and fearless Helen Thomas. So sad, and what a way to end a fine career.
It was stunning to see a woman of Helen Thomas’ stature, with her career accomplishments and longevity shredded over one comment. That was sexism and so was the double standard of forgiveness for Etheridge and not Thomas. We see the one-strike rule applied to racism, we should apply it to sexism as well. One sexist crack should result in a man losing his job. Until women get tough we won’t get respect no matter what we accomplish in a lifetime. In addition, women should decide what is or isn’t sexist, just as African Americans have the final say on what is or isn’t racist.
I meant to say, “We see the one-strike rule applied to racism and other things, we should apply it to sexism as well.”
In other words, my post should have read:
It was stunning to see a woman of Helen Thomas’ stature, with her career accomplishments and longevity shredded over one comment. That was sexism and so was the double standard of forgiveness for Etheridge and not Thomas. We see the one-strike rule applied to racism and other things, we should apply it to sexism as well. One sexist crack should result in a man losing his job. Until women get tough we won’t get respect no matter what we accomplish in a lifetime. In addition, women should decide what is or isn’t sexist, just as African Americans have the final say on what is or isn’t racist.
And I don’t mean to seem to excuse Thomas’ remark. But one remark shouldn’t end such a stellar career and define the woman. If that’s where we are, then we need to level the playing field by instituting the one-strike rule for sexist remarks too. That would create a lot of job vacancies because most men are sexist and make sexist remarks.
She’s evolved from a powerful, influential, public figure to a “horse’s ass,” which now thinking about all of the attention she got because of her tenure, she was probably a “horse’s ass” all along.
Helen Thomas did not get lots of attention because of her tenure. She got lots of attention because she asked tough questions throughout most of her career. Anyone who assumes she “probably was a “horse’s ass” all along” because of “all the attention she got because of her tenure” denegrates the achievements of all women who have been pioneers in male-dominated fields.
Query: Is this a part of “Sexism Watch”, because, if it is, it’s misguided. As a longtime Radical Feminist (see Barbara Love’s book
” Feminists Who Changed America, pg 91) I would normally rush to a womans side if it made sense to do so. Sorry to say, this does not warrant my support.
Thank you for this article. It seems that women a lot of the time get the worst end of the stick, especially if their looks or youth cannot carry them. It is Thomas’ intelligence that carried her throughout her career, and that is a gift to all women. No she does not deserve to be fired. As I wrote at another site, she may have been wrong, but she has a right to express her opinion. To this day I do not even know what she meant by that statement really. So much hypocrisy is going on now in the name of poiltical and religious correctness, why scapegoat Thomas? She did apologize. The years she has spent to further good journalism should have allowed her some room to express an opinion.
Wow, talk about rude. The comments made by the two previous “people” was uncalled for. Helen Thomas had a very successful career. She was paid for her opinion. If you don’t like it too bad. There is such a thing as freedom of speech. There are a lot of horrible things people in the public eye say and nobody goes on about it such as Helen Thomas’s comment wrong or right. I feel she was singled out because she was a woman. Why do people still speak to Sarah Palin after she said “Obama pals around with terrorists”. Why was that not condemend. Hypocrisy is the reason.
Helen had a great career and she should be honored for it not condemened because you disagree with her opinion.
Thank you for this post.
I still want to believe that it is the career of Helen Thomas that is written in indelible ink and with time the dominance of this footnote will retreat.
I wish that she had found a way to express her frustration in a manner that did not throw verbal kerosene on the wild fires of the Middle East. I wish she had not had a camera shoved into her face. Yes, her comments were unfortunate. Do I believe that she was saying Jews should be shoved back into the mouth of the historic places of the Holocaust? No I don’t and I refuse to participate in a “dialogue” that convicts her as a criminal because she isn’t a Zionist. Or those who insist the comments are evidence she hates Jews. Helen Thomas said she was sorry. I accept that apology. How sorry is sorry enough? In Jewish tradition, both secular and spiritual, if one asks to be forgiven it comes with the requirement to forgive. I will proceed as such. And for those who say “but actions should have consequences”…Hasn’t she been punished sufficiently? I raise my virtual glass to a woman who was alone in the room for a very long time and endured many insults and demeaning remarks from Presidents themselves throughout decades. Helen Thomas did not give up; she kept on asking hard questions and standing for all the women who were not admitted as correspondents. I hope women, of all opinions about Israel and Palestine, will not dismiss her place in history, her reputation and her work for one remark. I would surely hope not to be judged so harshly in my lifetime.
Well said Alida!
While I agree that Helen Thomas had a distinguished career, her hateful comments with malice coming from a woman who should have known better are painful to Jews around the world- particularly those who suffered in The Holocaust. Helen Thomas stated that she is sorry, but what was she sorry about? Was she sorry for thinking that Jews should not have a homeland in Israel or sorry that she wolud have to resign from her job?
The admirable things that Helen stood for in her career was about holding Presidents and all in public office accountable. Helen could have expressed her opinion and diagreeemnt with Israel’s foreign policy is a more articulate way as to not slander Jews and back up her opinion with facts.
I admire Helen’s editors for forcing her to resign. A journalist that is filled with such contempt and vile and can’t separate facts from fiction is useless to her readers. I still admire Helen for all she accomplished in her career, but her hateful comments should not be tolerated by any journalist.
Great piece. There is no question that Helen Thomas’ remarks were regrettable. The is also no question that there is a double standard for women leaders. Helen Thomas’ work and legacy paved the way for women and this is a fact that can never be refuted.
Helen Thomas: Asking the Questions Real Democracy Demands
by Lydia Howell
I don’t think a tough question is disrespectful.–Helen Thomas
American democracy took a big hit with the forced retirement of Helen
Thomas, the First Lady of the Washington Press Corps..
When one considers how many scoundrels remain in powerful positions in
both public and private life, the swiftness with which she was dumped
after 50 years of reporting on U.S. presidents was breathtaking. More
so when you listen to TV talking-heads blandly repeating corporate and
Pentagon PR as “news” and Faux News blowhards like Beck and Limbaugh
shamelessly make vicious slanders, perpetrate outright lies and create
disinformation.
The last thing one hears in most places is the kind of tough question
that was Helen Thomas’ trademark.
Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White
House is his private preserve after they all promise an open
administration on the campaign trail, but some are more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.–Helen Thomas
Thomas recognized that it is essential for real democracy that the press
must have an adversarial relationship to the president, in order to get
to the facts about what the government is actually doing and why. She
wasn’t afraid to challenge the prevailing “defense of democracy”
narratives about U.S. wars and occupations—whether the President pushing
them was a Republican or a Democrat. Whether it was George W. Bush, who
Thomas called “the worst president in American history” or President
Barack Obama, who MSNBC cheerleaders like Keith Olbermann or Rachel
Maddow hesitate to criticize, Thomas bluntly pierced the propaganda.
Government secrecy is an enemy of real democracy, and Thomas was a
bright light trying to reveal what politicians aim to hide from the
American people: no-bid contracts for “private contractors” bilking the
public and committing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture
minimized as “enhanced interrogation,” the contradictions between
presidents’ speeches and actions.
You don’t spread democracy through the barrel of a gun. — Helen Thomas
For Thomas, “collateral damage” is a cove-rup word for civilian men,
women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan — and, yes, Gaza –
killed in the service of corporate empire-building. She made their
deaths visible while most media erases them. Thomas focused on policies,
not political party. She had no interest in the political “horse race”
coverage that dominates so much reporting.
What got Thomas fired was a May 27 off-the-cuff remark about Israel –t
the “third rail” of U.S. foreign policy. Thomas is the only
contradictory journalistic voice that could be heard in the so-called
“mainstream” (corporate-owned) media.
From the New York Times to CNN, reporters have mouthed the mantras
provided by Israel about their attack on the “freedom flotilla” ships
that tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Washington Post was at least honest enough to headline Glenn Kessler’s piece for what it was “Israel give its account of raid”. The rest of the U.S. media mostly went along with Israel’s claim that heavily armed IDF commandos
acted in “self-defense” against ships of civilians from 40 countries.
Soldiers fired live ammunition, used tasers and flash bombs on human
rights activists, a Nobel Prize winner, Ed Peck (a former U.S.
ambassador to the Middle East) Swedish novelist Henning Mankell, peace
activist and retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright. Yet, unless one goes to the
Internet and the international press (including dissenting voices in
Israel itself), the attacks on the Freedom Flotilla have been told only
from Israel’s perspective.
Telling the other side was certainly possible within three days of the IDF assault as the Freedom Flotilla activists were released and speaking with or writng for international media outside the U.S. For example, Swedish author of the ‘Wallander’ mystery series, Henning Mankell’s ‘Flotilla Diary” was published in the UK Guardian newspaper.
Would Helen Thomas, at a White House press briefing, have quoted the
emerging eyewitness accounts of the commando raids on the ships? Would
she have raised the facts that the rest of the world already knows about
Israel’s three-year blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza? Would she have
asked President Obama how Israel’s “security” was threatened by the
ships’ medicine, toys, wheelchairs, olive trees and cement for
Palestinians still living in rubble and on what the World Health
Organization has called “a starvation diet”?
Would any other reporter have done so?
She did.
On June 1, Thomas grilled White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
“The initial reaction to the flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an
international crime, was pitiful. What do you mean you regret something
that should be so strongly condemned, and if any other nation in the
world had done it, we would have been up in arms? What is this ironclad
relationship where a country that deliberately kills people and boycotts
every aid and abet… the boycott [blockade of Gaza]?”
http://palestinenote.com/cs/blogs/news/archive/2010/06/01/watch-helen-thomas-grills-white-house-on-flotilla-massacre.aspx
It was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) priority to conceal as much as
possible of the attack from the world through censorship. Journalists
and activists on the Freedom Flotilla are saying their satellite
transmissions were quickly jammed. The international press is
interviewing these journalists who say that IDF soldiers confiscated or
immediately destroyed all cameras, cell phones and lap top computers.
There was no return of those devices — which presumably had raw footage
of the attack that would contradict Israel’s propaganda campaign.
However, raw, unedited footage of the Israeli assault is now becoming
available, and it shows the falsehood of the IDF-edited footage
distributed widely shortly after the attack. Israel has now admited that
audio was added to the IDF footage that U.S. media widely broadcast.
The June 10 edition of “Democracy NOW!” interviewed one of the
journalists on the Flotilla and has some of the raw video Israel did not
manage to suppress: http://www.democracynow.org/
Robert Mackey has also complied the raw video at:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/reporter-disputes-israeli-account-of-raid/
But, without Helen Thomas in the White House press room, will anyone
confront Barack Obama about the U.S. policy of unconditional support for
Israel’s ongoing violations of international law, or the additional $30
billion in U.S. military aid to Israel recently authorized for
expenditure over the next decade?
We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed. — Helen Thomas
Increasingly, one hears about a “crisis in journalism” that is too often
debated in terms of profits: “How can newspapers compete with the
Internet? What’s the 21st century economic model?”
What corporate-owned newspapers fail to debate is the real crisis in
journalism, the crisis of content and perspective, independence and
purpose of journalism in a democracy.
The career (and firing) of Helen Thomas speaks directly to the juncture
that American journalism finds itself at: “Infotainment” or information?
Probing for facts or press release distribution? Asking questions or
echoing statements from public relations flunkies? Thomas didn’t just
jot down what press secretaries or presidents said. Unlike most of the
Beltway hacks working in the corporate media, Thomas knows the
difference between public relations and journalism.
Unfortunately, for the last 25 years, the job descriptions of the two
fields increasingly have merged as schools of journalism and departments
of advertising/marketing/public relations have been folded together into
“communications” departments. Many of today’s reporters don’t appear to
even know the difference between the craft of journalism and the
craftiness of PR. They are simply, “stenographers to power,” as writer
Micheal Parenti calls them in a critique of the press of that name.
There’s a reason that journalism is the only profession protected under
our Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson remarked, “Were it left to me to decide whether we
should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a
government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Democracy is threatened when the people do not know what their
government is doing. Democracy can not survive when citizens are not
informed about the issues of the day and the policies proposed to
address them.
Consider the gobbledy-gook that passes for reporting whenever another
U.S. war is proposed or the confusion and sound-bites surrounding the
health care “reform” bill approved by President Obama. When America’s
youth are to be sent around the world to kill and be killed or when
major legislation that affects everyone, such as that on health care, is
to be voted on by Congress, what is needed is deeply informed reporting
that is skeptical of those with political power and wealth. Without that
kind of journalism, citizens cannot possibly participate in democracy in
any meaningful way — and true democracy is more than voting for
packaged candidates every two to four years.
Few in the White House press corps have dug deeply enough to be actually
informed. Acting more like celebrity writers, they worship the powerful
people true journalism is supposed to hold accountable.
I doubt anyone left in the White House press room has the guts regularly
shown by the petite 89- year-old woman who was just forced to retire.
American democracy will be further diminished towards a state of facade
without Helen Thomas’ questions.
Lydia Howell is an independent journalist in Minneapolis, Minnesota, winner of the Premack Award for Public Interest Journalism. She is also producer/host of “Catalyst:politics & culture” on KFAI Radio.
Sorry to check in again, but this diatribe from Ms. Howell strays from the question and raises some issues that I deal with in an appropriate place.
My understanding is that a comment about the firing of Helen Thomas for her comment that jews in Israel should go back to where they came from (my wording) is up for debate. Is that sexism, since a male was not fired for an inappropriate action? I just read the responses, and I still believe that everyone (including Sarah Palin) in public life especially, needs to be accountable for what she or he says and/or does. Ms. Thomas is not exempt. What if she had said that Black people should go back to Africa. I shudder to think of the reaction to that. Would it be so understanding. So benign? And, perhaps it was agism. Haven’t heard THAT mentioned.
So my question now is:
Is there a measurement for firing a woman, based on all of the good works she may have done in the past and mis-speaks at the end of a brilliant career.
I have softened my position a bit. Ms. Thomas didn’t need to be fired, since we all heard or read her comment. So, she already has lost credibility with a large number of people. She may have gained some admirers. Who knows. And the world goes on.
The anger and rage of a long career destruction by two minutes of slip of the tongue is obvious. But let’s not forget that sometimes such slips betraying the person’s true opinion.