I remember cornering Helen Thomas at the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. I needed some “esteemed” political reporter to interveiw for National Public Radio and I figured that a woman the same age as my recently deceased mother would certainly fit the bill. Few living reporters have covered the White House or Washington longer. Surely, she could offer rich and deep perspective.
I was also a little fatigued by the younger, more corporate news person that we have a surplus of these days.
I had just left ABC News where the Disney company was cleaning house of all the experienced news people and replacing its staff with the Mouseketeer club. The thinking was that young, inexperienced people would be best for packaging news for the younger crowd, ie, the crowd that most appeals to Madison Avenue advertisers. (The strategy didn’t work of course, as CBS and Bob Schiefer are proving.)
Today, everyone is celebrating Thomas, nearing her 86th birthday, for yesterday’s questioning President Bush about his reasons for invading Iraq. And Thomas herself is berating the news media in The Nation:
Of all the unhappy trends I have witnessed — conservative swings on television networks, dwindling newspaper circulation, the jailing of reporters and “spin” — nothing is more troubling to me than the obsequious press during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. They lapped up everything the Pentagon and White House could dish out–no questions asked.
Funny, Helen had just left UPI and joined Hearst Newspapers as a columnist. She was having trouble transitioning as a columnist, she said. “I don’t know about him,” she told me of Bush. “Why does he think he should be president?”
I suggested she just write as though she were talking to friends.
I mentioned that the NPR’s VP of news, Bruce Drake, at the time. “Yeah, she’s not columnist material,” he said.
Well, she is now:
My concern is why the nation’s media were so gullible. Did they really think it was all going to be so easy, a “cakewalk,” a superpower invading a Third World country? Why did the Washington press corps forgo its traditional skepticism? Why did reporters become cheerleaders for a deceptive Administration? Could it be that no one wanted to stand alone outside Washington’s pack journalism?
I guess old dogs can learn new tricks — and teach a few to the lap dogs.
