April 9, 2003 - Edwardsville Intelligencer: Veteran Newspaperwoman Helen Thomas says JFK was the most inspired of all the presidents she covered

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Veteran Newspaperwoman Helen Thomas says JFK was the most inspired of all the presidents she covered





Read and comment on this story from the Edwardsville Intelligencer on Veteran Newspaperwoman Helen Thomas who says JFK was the most inspired of all the presidents she covered.
"I loved the fact that he told young people to go into public service. He inspired them. He told them they should give something back to the country. He told them that there's a universe out there that we have to explore. He set a goal that we could land a man on the moon. Something as far-fetched as that. He didn't live to see it, but we did it. He was involved in the nuclear test ban treaty. He created the Peace Corps. He knew that we could never stand still."
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Days in the White House*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Days in the White House

Steve Horrell , Of the Intelligencer

04/09/2003

Ask veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas which of the nine presidents she most enjoyed covering, and she answers without hesitation.

"JFK. He was the most inspired of all the presidents I covered. I loved the fact that he told young people to go into public service. He inspired them. He told them they should give something back to the country. He told them that there's a universe out there that we have to explore. He set a goal that we could land a man on the moon. Something as far-fetched as that. He didn't live to see it, but we did it. He was involved in the nuclear test ban treaty. He created the Peace Corps. He knew that we could never stand still."

Thomas came to Edwardsville Tuesday to offer "Wit and Wisdom From the Front Row," part of the Arts and Issues series offered that night at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Before her speech, she spoke individually with several area reporters. Starting with Kennedy, Thomas has spent 57 years covering the White House for United Press International. In 1974, she became UPI's White House bureau chief. Today she writes a column for Hearst Newspapers.

She began her journalism career in 1943, writing radio news for UPI, and 12 years later she began covering Kennedy, who, in November of 1960, had just been elected president. Since then, she has traveled to China with presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and George H. Bush. Compared to Kennedy, she said, each of his successors was very pragmatic. "None of them had their eyes on the stars as he did," she said. "There was an extra something there that really made you feel that America was going places in the best possible way."

Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were both exciting, she added, but covering Johnson "was a three-ring circus." Those around him, she said, never knew what was coming next. "We had much more access. But, of course, you didn't have 9/11 and all the scares. But in those days you could really get much closer to the presidents. You could see their moves, and they let their hair down around reporters much more than they do today."

Thomas is known for her tough, probing questioning of presidents, offering up questions they often don't want to hear.

"My favorite question in all the world is 'Why?,'" she said.

"I just don't see how you can really get a handle on it unless you have some basis to know where they're coming from. If you ask four people why we're in this war, you'll get four answers."

Thomas has served as president of the Women's National Press Club.

She became the first woman officer of the National Press Club and the first woman officer of the White House Correspondents Association, as well as its first president.

She has little patience with people who complain about what they perceive as a liberal bias in national news coverage.

"Please find me a fellow liberal!" she said. "Find one. That's a myth. That's a fallacy. I think present-day columnists are so conservative. I think the papers are mostly so conservative. Everybody's playing it close to the right."

Thomas has always been one to tell things as she sees them, and let the chips fall where they may. The best reporters, she says, have a "healthy skepticism" about government. "To me, there's always a question about anything the government puts out," she said.

One of the few subjects that Thomas hasn't formed a strong opinion about is the use of "embedded journalists" working alongside American and British troops in Iraq.

Until they return from the war and give their account of the experience, she said, determining their effectiveness is nearly impossible.

Thomas is an avid watcher of CNN and other cable news programs.

"But it's all very, very flat," she said. "Because they come on in a very excited way, and then they move on. So it's very difficult for me to see whether we're getting one slice of the pie or whether we're getting the war."

Thomas said she hopes to continue reporting for several more years. The life of reporting, she said, "is my ideal."

Thomas said she has never gotten so chummy with her subjects that she can't deliver the news in a balanced and objective way.

"I never felt too close to any president, believe me," she said. "I gave them too hard a time. I'm sure there were times they said, 'That woman!'"

©Edwardsville Intelligencer 2003

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