Journalism icon Helen Thomas is, amazingly, in her fiftieth year of covering presidential politics. The 89-year-old reporter, who began her astounding career before John F. Kennedy took office, is profiled at NPR. Among her blunt insights:
(Presidents) hate the press really. They need the press during a campaign and they really work to get their attention. But after, once they're in the White House the iron curtain comes down. ... you have to struggle harder to convince them that this is the country with freedom of the press and every public official is very accountable. Everything they do is accountable to the American people and that's why we're there. We're the watchdogs. And I think everything belongs to the public domain practically, except for where the atomic arsenal is.
Thomas, of course, was particularly acclaimed for her hounding of President Bush in the lead-up to the war in Iraq ... though as a whole, she calls out the media for its "lack of guts" at the time, letting the whole country down. She does, however, think meaningful lessons were learned:
(Reporters are) getting tougher, a lot tougher. The questioning is much more penetrating. They're putting press secretaries on the spot. I think they're tougher on the president, but he hasn't had many news conferences. Presidents don't like to have news conferences. They're president. How dare you question them or their motives?
About the Image: Thomas, writing for United Press International, questions Kennedy in 1960.
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