Helen Thomas

UXL Newsmakers, (2005)

Helen Thomas

Regarded as the dean of the Washington, D.C., press corps, reporter Helen Thomas (born 1920) has served as White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI) since 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."

Parents Valued Hard Work and Education

Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Kentucky on August 4, 1920, 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. They later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where Helen Thomas was raised.

All of the Thomas children were brought up to value education, and all were expected to make something of themselves-"even us girls, as uncommon as that thinking was in those days," Thomas explained in an interview with Alan Ebert published in Good Housekeeping. She made up her mind while she was still in high school to become a reporter after a stint as a writer for the student newspaper. "A teacher praised my work," recalled Thomas in her memoir, "and I liked the bylines!" She pursued her dream of a career in journalism at Detroit's Wayne University (now Wayne State University), where she majored in English and once again worked on the school paper.

After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1942, Thomas headed straight for Washington, D.C., in search of a newspaper job. Before long, she landed one as a copy girl at the now-defunct Washington Daily News, where her duties in the male-dominated newsroom included fetching coffee and doughnuts for the paper's reporters and editors. The eager young woman nevertheless found the atmosphere exciting and stimulating and was convinced she had made the right career choice. Her mother kept asking her when she was coming home, but Thomas knew she had found what she has described as "a journalist's paradise" in Washington and that she was in the nation's capital to stay.

Joined UPI Staff

Not long after she received a promotion to cub reporter, Thomas found herself without a job when a labor-management dispute at the Daily News resulted in massive staff cutbacks. Making the rounds once again, she was hired by United Press International in 1943. For the next dozen years, she wrote local news stories for UPI's radio wire service on subjects deemed to be of interest to women (the only topics female reporters were allowed to cover in those days). Beginning in the late 1940s, however, Thomas picked up some additional writing assignments, including the "Names in the News" column for UPI, which featured interviews with famous Washingtonians. From time to time, she also wrote about the comings and goings of President Harry S Truman's wife, Bess.

Thomas moved on to more serious reporting in 1955 when she was assigned to cover the U.S. Department of Justice. Her federal government beat later expanded to include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services), and Capitol Hill. She thrived professionally in other ways as well, serving as president of the Women's National Press Club in 1959-60.

Covered Kennedy White House

Her big break came shortly after the 1960 presidential election when she was sent to Palm Beach, Florida, to report on the vacation of President-elect John F. Kennedy and his family. Determined to ferret out the details not only of their public moments but of their private ones as well, Thomas followed the Kennedys everywhere and talked to anyone she could find who had had some kind of contact with them. She focused in particular on the glamorous but aloof First-Lady-to-be, Jacqueline, a figure of endless fascination to the American public. Jackie did everything she could to thwart such intense scrutiny, but to no avail; Thomas interviewed caterers, hairdressers, and even employees of the diaper service company the family used to obtain the inside information she wanted. This relentless pursuit of the "story behind the story," combined with Thomas's bold tactics, her pointed questions, and sometimes biting sarcasm, have since become hallmarks of her reporting style and still occasionally annoy and exasperate the newsmakers she covers.