Wayne State graduate Helen Thomas, a daughter of Lebanese immigrants who covered 10 presidents as a path-breaking White House correspondent, died Saturday at her apartment in Washington, D.C..
The news broke in an email to fellow members of a Washington journalists' group, Politico reports:
"Former Gridiron Club president Helen Thomas, our first female member, died Saturday morning at her Washington apartment after a long illness," Gridiron's Carl P. Leubsdorf wrote in an email to members. "She would have been 93 next month."
Helen Thomas, 92, was legendary as a feisty newswoman. She's shown at the White House in 2006. [AP Photo by Charles Dharapak]
Thomas, who earned an English degree in 1942 from WSU, was raised mainly in Detroit. Her family moved to the city from Kentucky when she was four. Her father ran a grocery.
She'll be buried in Detroit, a five-paragraph family statement says.
Related coverage: Helen Thomas, Remembered: 'Amazing Trailblazer', 'Not Shy,' 'I Loved That Old Lady'
The feisty, legendary newswoman gained national prominence at White House news conferences and daily briefings, where she continued sitting front and center late into her career -- often tossing pointed questions at press secretaries and sometimes presidents.
Lisa Zagaroli, former Washington bureau writer for The Detroit News, recalls her in a Facebook post as someone who "paved the way for women in journalism."
Nicknames -- the affectionate ones, that is -- included the "Sitting Buddha" and the "First Lady of the Press."
Thomas worked for United Press (later called United Press International) for 57 years as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau chief. She covered every president since John F. Kennedy, an astonishing streak that began a year before Barack Obama was born.
Thomas traveled around the world several times with all presidents since Richard Nixon.
""Helen's been in Washington so long, she remembers when the Electoral College was a high school," Bill Clinton joked at a Gridiron Club dinner during his presidency.
President Obama's Tribute
She was up front again for Obama's first news conference in February 2009. He called on her with the statement: "Helen. I'm excited, this is my inaugural moment."
Her voice ended news conferences for decades with "Thank you, Mr. President." (A two-minute AP video of career highlights is below.)
Here's how The New York Times describes her Saturday:
Presidents grew to respect, even to like, Ms. Thomas for her forthrightness and energy, which sustained her well after the age when most people have settled into retirement.
Helen Thomas vamped at Washington's Gridiron Club dinner in 1991. [Facebook photo from Cragg Hines]
Press secretaries shared that respect, as confirmed by a tweet from Dana Perino, who succeeded former Detroit News deputy editorial page editor Tony Snow as chief presidential spokesperson in September 2007. "First day I ever took the podium, she came to encourage me," Perino, now a Fox News contributor, recalls under a photo of that moment.
George Stephanopolous of ABC, who was White House communications director for Bill Clinton, tweets: "We sparred. We laughed. I so admired her tenacity."
At age 80, the tireless journalist became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers in 2000, writing on national affairs and the White House. She retired in 2010 amid an outcry over comments about Israel, Israeli Jews and the conflict with Palestinians.
PLO Controversies
She was honored last year by the Palestine Liberation Organization's General Mission to the United States. Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi presented an award to "recognize Thomas’ long career in the field of journalism, during which she defended the Palestinian position every step of the way."
In 1910, her Detroit alma mater pulled the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award for journalism students after she made controversial remarks in Dearborn.
During a diversity workshop, called "Images and Perceptions of Arab-Americans" and sponsored by a group called Arab Detroit, Thomas was quoted as saying: "We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists."
WSU's next-day response said:
"As a public university, Wayne State encourages free speech and open dialogue, and respects diverse viewpoints. However the university strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas during a conference yesterday."
Before pro-PLO comments undercut her image, Thomas broke these "glass ceilings:"
- Only female print journalist traveling to China with President Richard Nixon during historic 1972 trip.
- First female officer of the National Press Club.
- First female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association.
- First woman in the Gridiron Club.
Zagaroli, the past Detroit News reporter who's now a communications adviser at the Federal Aviation Administration, posts that thomas "could rock a Gridiron costume (even a curtain rod) like no other. RIP fellow Detroiter."
In 1976, she was named one of the World Almanac's 25 Most Influential Women in America.
The former Detroiter wrote six books. Her latest, "Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do," came out in 2009.
Sources for this article include CNN, Fox News and her Wikipedia biography.
