Press failed America, reporter says

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 8, 2006 | by Leigh Dethman Deseret Morning News

The White House press corps failed the American public after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, veteran journalist Helen Thomas said Saturday.

Instead of asking the tough questions, reporters feared being labeled "unpatriotic" and fell for "deliberate disinformation" from the Defense Department to lead the country into war, Thomas told a standing-room only crowd at Rowland Hall St. Mark's Lower Campus Saturday night.

Not anymore.

"The press is coming back from the dead," said Thomas, commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press." "The people expect truth and deserve no less."

Thomas was in town Saturday to kick off the McCarthey Family Lecture Series: In Praise of Independent Journalism. The series features journalists who have demonstrated the highest level of courageous, thoughtful and unbiased reporting.

The woman was a staple on the front row of the White House press room, covering every president since John F. Kennedy Jr. She worked for 57 years as White House correspondent for United Press International (UPI) and has penned a column for the Hearst Newspapers since 2000.

She said she has seen it all and is not surprised by anything in D.C. politics -- not even the cybersex scandal plaguing the Republican Party and former U.S. Rep. Matt Foley, R-Fla. That, coupled with the possibility of the Democrats taking over power in Congress, has Republicans "very worried and Democrats are upbeat for the first time in a long time,"

Thomas left Detroit in 1943 with dreams of being a journalist. Little did she know journalism was largely a man's world at the time. Women weren't even allowed to join the National Press Club until 1979, she said. She took a job as a copy girl at the Washington Daily News and moved to UPI. The rest is history.

"Nobody ever told me it was a man's world -- I found out later on," Thomas said. "I was a women's libber since the day I was born."

Presidents fear her. She said former President Jimmy Carter once said her questions were like acupuncture.

Her tough questioning continued Saturday as Thomas openly questioned the Bush administration's tactics to send the country to war in Iraq, saying, "We went into this war under false pretenses." She said George H.W. Bush was smart enough to stay out of Baghdad.

"Where is the outrage in this country over the falsehoods?" Thomas said. "The passivity now is unfathomable. I'm certain there will be a grand awakening and accounting."

E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com