By Julie Asher
Connie Lawn, who succeeded Helen Thomas as senior correspondent at the White House, recalled the late Thomas as a “wonderful, compassionate person” who “deserves respect.”
“She broke a lot of barriers,” Lawn added about a woman who accomplished many “firsts” in her long career.
A member of SPJ-DC’s Hall of Fame, Thomas died July 20 at age 92.
A memorial service for Thomas is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Oct. 5 at the National Press Club, 14th and F Streets NW in Washington. Family members had a funeral for Thomas in Detroit Aug. 15. As per her wishes, she was cremated and her ashes buried there.
She was an author and news service reporter, member of the White House press corps and opinion columnist.
She worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager. She was a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. She covered the administrations of 11 U.S. presidents — from the final years of the Eisenhower administration to the second year of the Obama administration.
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.
Her long career ended in a cloud of controversy for comments she made about Israel, Jews and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She was forced to retire from Hearst in June 2010. She continued to write a column for a Falls Church newspaper.
In January 2011, the board of director of the Society of Professional Journalists voted Friday to retire the organization’s Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award.
The SPJ-DC chapter maintains its Helen Thomas Scholarship, which is awarded to help a qualifying student SPJ chapter defray the costs of sending its members to the national convention. This year the recipient was the SPJ chapter at the University of Maryland/Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
About the controversy, Lawn said: “I’m Jewish. I knew Helen since 1968. She was always wonderful to me. She was especially wonderful to new reporters. She knew my family origins were Jewish and knew I worked part time for Israeli radio at the time and I am still close to Israel. She was wonderful to me — we had the same basic beliefs, that there should be a two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of both. There was no difference there.”
Thomas was “very critical of American policy. Frankly she believed we caused more deaths than necessary –- that’s really the core of her beliefs –- look at some of our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lawn said. “Her views were consistent. She had said that since 1968. Toward the end, her quote was ‘Jews should get out of Palestine, and go to Germany, Poland, or the U.S.’ I obviously disagree — all people should live where they want!”
In the fallout from Thomas’ remarks, Lawn said, the National Press Club “treated her honorably. Some, but not all, in the White House Correspondents Association were very hard on her … Many of us felt it was too harsh. This year they wrote a beautiful tribute to her.”
Lawn has had her own news bureau since 1968 and is the author of “You Wake Me Each Morning, 2010 Edition” (Amazon, Kindle).She has a lifetime achievement award from NPC and now might be the longest serving White House correspondent. She broadcasts about 10 stories a day and is heard on the IRN USA Radio network.
Lawn said that she and some of her fellow reporters felt they failed Thomas. “We should have said (to her): ‘Please tone it down.’ Maybe if we had done that, maybe none of this would have happened. We failed her.”
Lawn recalled that she and her husband visited Thomas at her apartment several times “after she was ousted.”
“And she was crying and crying -– I think she cried for three years. She was full of remorse and it absolutely broke her heart that this ended her career. I’m not sure she really meant what she said, she was always sarcastic. … It was heartbreaking.”
Last year Lawn hosted a party for Thomas at the NPC’s McClendon Room, on a Friday in August; the veteran journalist had turned 92 Aug. 4. The room, named for the late Sarah McClendon, was an appropriate setting, because she and Thomas were the two senior correspondents in their day. More than 25 journalists turned out. Then-NPC President Theresa Werner welcomed the group and a couple of past NPC presidents, Mark Hamrich and John Cosgrove, dropped by.
Thomas should be remembered for her many accomplishments and the barriers she broke, “not what happened the last three years,” said Lawn. “We should still honor and respect and learn from her -–she was fearless.”