Helen Thomas, long-serving White House correspondent, dies at 92
As the senior news service correspondent at the White House, Thomas quizzed 10 presidents, ending dozens of news conferences with the phrase "Thank you, Mr. President."
Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas, a trailblazing journalist who reported on every US president from John Kennedy to Barack Obama, died yesterday at the age of 92.
As the senior news service correspondent at the White House, Thomas quizzed 10 presidents, ending dozens of news conferences with the phrase "Thank you, Mr. President."
She was known for her straight-to-the-point questioning of presidents and press secretaries in a manner that some considered dogged. Others, including many fellow reporters, considered her style in her later years to be too combative and agenda-driven.
In the last 10 years of her career Thomas was a columnist for Hearst, a job that allowed her opinions to surface more than in her work as a hard-news reporter for UPI.
Thomas announced in June 2010 that she was retiring from Hearst after comments she made about Israel and the Palestinians, including that Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine", were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet.