HELEN THOMAS

Dean, Washington, DC Press Corps

Friday, April 18th, 8:00am

Regarded as the dean of the Washington, D.C., press corps, reporter Helen Thomas served as White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI) beginning in 1974. To those who regularly watch presidential press conferences, Helen Thomas is a familiar figure. Usually dressed in red (a tradition dating back to the administration of Ronald Reagan) and always seated in the front row, she is invariably the first or second reporter the president calls upon. It is an honor she has earned by virtue of her long and distinguished career in Washington, and it is one she relishes. Besides, it affords her the perfect opportunity to do what she does best, bluntly challenge the president (and other public officials) to tell the plain, unvarnished truth. "We (reporters) are not there to curry presidential favor, nor can we respond to efforts at presidential intimidation," she asserted in her memoir, Dateline: White House. "Our priority is the peoples' right to know-without fear or favor. We are the peoples' servants."

Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Kentucky, the seventh of nine children. Her Lebanese immigrant parents, George and Mary Thomas, had arrived in the United States in 1903 with a mere $17 in their pockets. Living at first in Lexington, Kentucky, where several relatives had already settled, George Thomas supported his growing family as a door-to-door peddler of food and household items. Eventually, he was able to open his own grocery store and move his family to the Kentucky town of Winchester.

Eventually, they moved to Detroit, Michigan where she attended public schools, and later graduated from Wayne State University. The year after college Thomas served as a copy girl on the now defunct Washington Daily News, and joined United Press International in 1943. 

For 12 years Thomas had to be at work at 5:30 a.m. to write radio news for U.P.I. She later had several beats around the federal government, including the Department of Justice, F.B.I., Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and Capitol Hill before she began covering President-elect John F. Kennedy in 1960. Thomas went to the White House in January 1961 as a member of the U.P.I. team headed by the late Merriman Smith, and was there until May 2000. In July 2000 Thomas became a columnist for the Hearst News Service – where she continues today.

Helen Thomas has written four books. Her latest book is called Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.