Helen Thomas Quotes
Presidents hate the press. They hate me most of the time.
Thomas, Helen. Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times. Scribner, 1999.
In 1948 in the midst of the Red Scare the HUAC and its Senate counterpart had started to hound a former Assistant Secretary of State, Lawrence Duggan. Typical of the times, those who disagreed with Duggan’s political views anonymously leaked material to the press alleging that Duggan might have been a spy. The press had a feeding frenzy and Dugan committed suicide in the midst of the pressure. Most in Congress paused to contemplate the consequence of what was occurring. Even Richard M. Nixon regretted the “misunderstandings.” Dugan’s father, however, an old acquaintance of Edward R. Murrow, the then dean of American broadcasters, however primarily blamed the press for printing all the unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo.
The story had been placed by Republican dirty tricksters throughout the press. Reston, then the editor of the New York Times, was totally uninterested in whether or not the story was true. He, in contrast to some other NYT staff was not a JFK enthusiast in general. but saw such material as not news and certainly not “fit to print.”—the newspaper’s oldest journalistic standard He removed the reporter from the assignment but in such a climate, it is easy to see in retrospect why the JFK sex scandals were not covered by the press.
And the New York press is probably the most difficult and cynical in the world.
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Ironically politicians need the journalists to communicate their message adn get public exposure and the Journalists need the politicians to provide subject matter and to serve as sources. Each uses the other which produces resentment.
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Helen Amelia Thomas was an American reporter and author, and a long serving member of the White House press corps. She covered the White House during the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the beginning of the Kennedy administration to the second year of the Obama administration.
