1. Helen Amelia Thomas was an American reporter and author, and a long-serving member of the White House press corps.
48 Facts About Helen Thomas
1. 2.
Helen Thomas then served as a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House.
3.
Helen Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association and the first female member of the Gridiron Club.
4.
Helen Thomas wrote six books; her last was Listen Up, Mr President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do.
5.
Helen Thomas retired from Hearst Newspapers on June 7,2010, following controversial remarks she made about Israel in an impromptu, unstructured amateur short interview when solicited for "any comments on Israel," she replied, "tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," leading to accusations of antisemitism.
6.
Helen Thomas then served as an opinion columnist for the Falls Church News-Press until February 2012.
7.
Helen Thomas said her father's surname, "Antonious", was anglicized to "Helen Thomas" when he entered the US at Ellis Island, and that her parents could neither read nor write.
8.
Helen Thomas was raised mainly in Detroit, Michigan, where her family moved when she was four years old, and where her father ran a grocery store.
9.
Helen Thomas was a member of the Antiochian Orthodox Church.
10.
Helen Thomas attended Detroit Public Schools, and decided to become a journalist while attending Eastern High School.
11.
Helen Thomas enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1942, as the school did not yet offer a degree in journalism.
12.
Helen Thomas moved to Washington, DC Her first job in journalism was as a copygirl for the now-defunct Washington Daily News.
13.
Helen Thomas joined United Press in 1943 and reported on women's topics for its radio wire service.
14.
Helen Thomas later was assigned to cover other agencies, including the United States Department of Health, as well as Capitol Hill.
15.
Helen Thomas served as president of the Women's National Press Club from 1959 through 1960.
16.
In November 1960, Thomas began covering then President-elect John F Kennedy, taking the initiative to switch from reporting the "women's angle" to reporting the news of the day.
17.
Helen Thomas became a White House correspondent for UPI in January 1961.
18.
In 1962, Helen Thomas convinced President Kennedy not to attend the annual dinners held for the White House correspondents and photographers if they disallowed women from attending.
19.
Helen Thomas was named the chief of UPI's White House bureau in 1974.
20.
Helen Thomas was the only female print journalist to accompany President Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to China.
21.
Helen Thomas circled the globe several times, traveling with every US president from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama.
22.
Helen Thomas covered every Economic Summit since 1975, working up to the position of UPI's White House Bureau Chief, a post she would hold for over 25 years.
23.
In 1975, the Washington Press Corps club, known as the Gridiron Club, admitted Helen Thomas, making her the first woman to become a member.
24.
Helen Thomas was the only member of the White House Press Corps to have her own seat in the White House Briefing Room.
25.
For many years, Helen Thomas sat in the front row and asked the first question during White House press conferences.
26.
On March 21,2006, Helen Thomas was called upon directly by President Bush for the first time in three years.
27.
Helen Thomas, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements.
28.
On February 9,2009, Helen Thomas was present in the front row for newly elected President Obama's first news conference.
29.
Helen Thomas asked if he knew of any Middle Eastern country that possessed nuclear weapons, implicitly asking him to confirm or deny Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal, despite Israel's long held stance of "nuclear ambiguity".
30.
Helen Thomas has had an esteemed career as a journalist, and she has been a trailblazer for women, helping others in her profession, and beyond.
31.
Helen Thomas's comments garnered rebukes from numerous others, including White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, former special counsel to and White House spokesman for President Bill Clinton, Lanny Davis, former Arkansas Gov.
32.
Helen Thomas did have defenders who felt she was being attacked too harshly, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner, former UPI managing editor Michael Freedman and The Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel.
33.
On December 2,2010, shortly before a speech for the eighth annual "Images and Perceptions of Arab Americans" conference in Dearborn, Michigan, Helen Thomas told reporters that she still stood by the comments she had made to Nesenoff.
34.
The organization said that Helen Thomas had "clearly, unequivocally revealed herself as a vulgar antisemite" in the speech.
35.
Helen Thomas was interviewed for the April 2011 issue of Playboy magazine, and made further contentious statements.
36.
Helen Thomas was employed as a columnist by the Virginia Falls Church News-Press from January 2011 to January 2012, contributing a few sporadic columns in the free weekly paper.
37.
Helen Thomas said in 2011 that he was "outraged" when the Society of Professional Journalists voted on retiring a scholarship award named for Thomas.
38.
At age 51, Helen Thomas married a colleague, Douglas Cornell, who was just retiring as the White House reporter for the Associated Press.
39.
Helen Thomas died on July 20,2013, at her home in Washington, DC at the age of 92.
40.
Helen Thomas was cremated and her ashes were buried in Detroit, following a traditional Antiochian Orthodox funeral service.
41.
Many female journalists memorialized Helen Thomas on Twitter, including Judy Woodruff, who called her a "trailblazer", and Lynn Sweet, who said she was a "glass ceiling breaking journalist".
42.
Dana Perino, who served as press secretary to President George W Bush, remembered that on her first day as press secretary, Thomas approached her to give her words of encouragement.
43.
Helen Thomas received numerous awards and more than 30 honorary degrees.
44.
In 1976, Helen Thomas was named one of the World Almanac's 25 Most Influential Women in America.
45.
In 2000, Helen Thomas was presented with the Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award.
46.
In 1993, Helen Thomas won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
47.
Helen Thomas received an Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media from the Freedom Forum in 1991.
48.
The Society of Professional Journalists had an annual award for top journalists named after Helen Thomas but decided to retire the award in 2011.