Ask Helen Thomas what keeps her going at age 87 and her response is a terse, "Why not?"
After covering nine presidents dating back to John F. Kennedy and not losing one spark of journalistic fire, Thomas shows no signs of relinquishing her role as "The First Lady of the Press." Thomas worked for 57 years as a White House correspondent for United Press International. She now works for Hearst Newspapers.
The veteran journalist will talk about her career and the current presidential race on Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. in Reynolds Theater in Duke's Bryan Center. The event is sponsored by the Baldwin Scholars Program.
Don't expect to hear much praise for the Washington press corps or the Bush presidency. Thomas has criticized the press for not asking enough tough questions of the Bush administration which she calls the most secretive of the nine presidents she's covered in the run-up to the Iraq war. She tackles the issue in her latest book, Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.
"I think that the press really let the country down," Thomas says. "I think they knew the president wanted to go to war at any cost. I think after 9/11 reporters were afraid of being called un-American or unpatriotic if they didn't support the administration line."
Thomas believes the press corps "began to come out of its coma" with tougher coverage of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
As for the current presidential race, Thomas believes Democrats will regain control of the White House. "I think that the Republicans don't have a prayer on this one. I think the vote will be a referendum on President Bush," she says.
Ellen Mickiewicz, director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at Duke, says Thomas' tenacity in covering the tight-lipped Bush administration makes her as influential today as at any time during her long career.
"It is this fearlessness and her status among her fellow journalists that shows women and men that it takes knowledge and training to get to the top," Mickiewicz said, "but moral integrity and unconcern about popularity contests to use the position to serve us all."