Helen Thomas

Her parents came from Tripoli, in what was then Ottoman Lebanon, could not read or write, and had the family surname changed to Thomas at Ellis Island. She was the seventh of nine surviving children, born in Winchester, Kentucky, and raised in Detroit, where her father ran a grocery and the neighborhood called them garlic eaters. She settled on journalism at Eastern High School and took an English degree from Wayne University in 1942, journalism not being on offer. Washington gave her a job as a copygirl at the Washington Daily News. Eight months in she joined her colleagues in a strike and was fired for it. United Press hired her in 1943 to write women's items for the radio wire.

She spent the 1950s on the Justice Department, the federal agencies and Capitol Hill, and then in November 1960 attached herself to a president-elect named Kennedy and did not leave the White House for 50 years. Along the way she took the doors off. In 1959 she and other women forced the men-only National Press Club to admit them to hear Khrushchev speak. In 1962 she got Kennedy to say he would skip the correspondents' dinner unless women were let in. The Gridiron Club took her as its first woman member in 1975, and she became the first woman to preside over the White House Correspondents' Association. UPI made her its chief White House correspondent in 1970 and its bureau chief there in 1974. She closed presidential press conferences for decades with four words: thank you, Mr. President.

She left the wire in 2000, the day after the Unification Church bought it, became a Hearst columnist and stopped censoring herself. It cost her twice. In January 2003 she told a journalists' banquet she was covering the worst president in American history, and for the first time in more than 40 years a president did not call on her. Then on May 27, 2010, at a White House Jewish heritage event, a rabbi with a camera asked her about Israel and she said the Israelis should get the hell out of Palestine and go home to Poland and Germany. She apologized on June 4. The video went online on June 7 and she resigned that day, at 89. That December she told a conference in Dearborn that Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street were owned by Zionists.

The Society of Professional Journalists retired the lifetime achievement award that carried her name, and Wayne State dropped its Helen Thomas prize. Arab American organizations honored her instead. She wrote for a free weekly in Falls Church, Virginia, for a year, and then stopped. She died at home in Washington on July 20, 2013, at 92, and her ashes were buried in Detroit after an Antiochian Orthodox service. Obama, who had called her remarks offensive and out of line, called her a true pioneer. The two verdicts have not merged and are not likely to. The seat is not in dispute: she was the only member of the White House press corps with her own name on one.

Helen Thomas's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Backstairs at the White House article
  Her long-running UPI column on the inside of each administration —
• Dateline: White House book
  Her first book, on the beat and the people who ran it 1975
• Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times book
  The memoir, published the year she left United Press International 2000
• Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President book
  Collected exchanges from the briefing room 2003
• Watchdogs of Democracy? book
  Her argument that the Washington press corps had failed the public 2006
• Listen Up, Mr. President book
  Written with Craig Crawford — her last book 2009

• 1924 aged ~4 The family moves from Kentucky to Detroit Her father ran a grocery store. Neither parent could read or write.
• 1942 aged ~22 Takes an English degree from Wayne University Journalism was not offered as a major.
• 1943 aged ~23 Joins United Press to write women's items for the radio wire She had been fired from the Washington Daily News for joining a strike.
• 1959 aged ~39 Forces the men-only National Press Club to admit women for Khrushchev's speech
• January 1961 aged 40 Becomes a White House correspondent for United Press International She had been covering Kennedy since he was president-elect.
• 1975 aged ~55 The Gridiron Club admits her as its first woman member She presided over the White House Correspondents' Association the following year.
• May 17, 2000 aged 79 Resigns from UPI after 57 years, the day after the Unification Church buys it She called it a bridge too far and joined Hearst as a columnist weeks later.
• June 7, 2010 aged 89 Resigns from Hearst the day the video of her remarks on Israel is posted She had apologized three days earlier.
• July 20, 2013 aged 92 Dies at home in Washington at 92 Her ashes were buried in Detroit.

• John F. Kennedy 1917–1963
  35th President whose brief tenure included the Cuban Missile Crisis and the launch of the Apollo program. first president she covered
• Richard Nixon 1913–1994
  37th President whose foreign policy achievements were overshadowed by the Watergate scandal. traveled with to China
• George W. Bush b. 1946
  43rd president who led the country after the September 11 attacks and launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. questioned about Iraq
• Barack Obama b. 1961
  44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act. last president she covered
• Nellie Bly 1864–1922
  Reporter whose undercover asylum investigation and record circumnavigation established investigative reporting. predecessor in the trade
• Katharine Graham 1917–2001
  Publisher who strengthened The Washington Post and backed its reporting on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. ran the paper across town