Mrs. Thomas Goes to Washington

(Note – Helen Thomas was on the job at a press conference with the president recently, who presented her with some cupcakes to celebrate her 89th birthday. Apart from reporting on 10 U.S. presidents, Thomas found the time to publish four books. You’ll find a review of her latest book here.)

Each chapter in Helen Thomas’ “Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public” is like a riddle in reverse. She takes all the facts and answers she can find and turns them into questions: Why are so many reporters afraid to address some of today’s most controversial topics? Are they really as fair and balanced as they claim to be? How did all the journalists in Washington go from watchdogs of democracy to lapdogs of the press?

That’s what she calls them, by the way – “lapdogs of the press.” That’s actually not a bad comparison, and it’s only one of many attacks on the media in this book. She also uses the word “robots” a lot.

But that doesn’t mean that Helen Thomas – who has been sitting in the front row for press conferences at the White House since the Kennedy administration – has turned into one of those boiling-mad pundits we’ve all gotten used to. She doesn’t spice up facts with gossipy flavor. She doesn’t jump up and down and scream like Howard Beale from “Network.” Thomas’ writing works because she has faith in our intelligence – she knows she can support the material without intensifying it. The facts tell their own story.

That’s what sets her apart from all the other journalists out there – her delivery. Thomas isn’t the only reporter to criticize the Bush administration so openly, but she makes sure that every topic in “Watchdogs of Democracy?” gets the patience and respect it deserves. The writing is bold, but never shocking. There are puddles of sarcasm, but not waves of it.

Thomas is very critical of all the “lapdogs of the press” over in Washington, but “Watchdogs of Democracy?” is more concerned with how they got that way. Before Sept. 11 kicked off an era of paranoid patriotism, journalists were expected to ask all the questions that the public couldn’t. They were expected to be informative and truthful, to get their facts straight before writing a single word. They were expected to – surely you haven’t forgotten? – write news that was hard and neutral. What seems noble now was simple then.

There’s a lot of history in Thomas’ book, and everything from the Bay of Pigs to Monicagate is made into an example. When Kennedy’s plans to invade Cuba were discovered by The Miami Herald and The New York Times, both newspapers were asked to keep it out of the headlines to ensure a surprise attack. After the invasion backfired, Kennedy said he wished he’d let them report the story – seeing it in print might’ve given him a better idea on how it was going to turn out.

Every chapter has its own unique strengths: In “Spinning the News,” Thomas discusses all the attempts our leaders have made to avoid unflattering headlines. Nixon’s press secretary would use what he called the “squeeze play” to dodge any embarrassing questions during the Watergate scandal. The “squeeze play” works something like this: If a briefing was scheduled for 11 a.m., he would show up at 11:30. Since most reporters had to turn their stories in by 12 p.m., the briefing only took about 15 minutes. (Watergate usually came up anyway…but not for very long.)

Thomas spends more time talking about Watergate than any other issue in this book…but the lady doth protest too much – she clearly had fun watching all the president’s men panic while the administration fell. (She describes Nixon as if he’d stepped out of the rouges gallery of villains on “Batman.”) But she sounds a little conflicted when she talks about W. Mark Felt, the man who called himself “Deep Throat.” Felt wanted to become the head of the FBI after J. Edgar Hoover’s death, but Nixon overlooked him. “[Bob] Woodward and Felt had struck up an earlier friendship,” she explains. “Felt anonymously corroborated information that the [Washington] Post team was turning up and became famous, or infamous – depending on the point of view – as ‘Deep Throat.’” Nobody can deny his bravery, but it’s hard to think of something nice to say when you’re talking about a guy who just wanted to get even.

But he gave Woodward and Bernstein what they needed to expose the truth, and the truth is the only thing that a journalist owes us. Besides, even if it was personal, it’s not like there aren’t other examples in “Watchdogs of Democracy?” where doing the right thing meant you had to stick it to the man. Before Ida Tarbell became a pioneer for women in the newspaper industry (she actually wrote for a magazine, but never mind), her father’s oil business – along with other small businesses all over the country – was obliterated by Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller. She never forgave Standard Oil for what it did to her father: Rockefeller became her favorite target as a writer for McClure’s Magazine, where she published her now legendary exposé, “The History of the Standard Oil Company.” Rockefeller, who was not amused by Miss Tarbell’s muckraking, used to call her “Miss Tarbarrel.”

Each chapter in “Watchdogs of Democracy?” is devoid of color and intimacy. (That was a compliment.) It works because of its enormous reality, and reality is the only note that Thomas knows how to play: When she unwisely tries to establish an emotional connection in the last lines of the epilogue, it isn’t nearly as deep as what came before it. (“It was Abraham Lincoln who said…”)

But that’s a momentary lapse of her usual logic. Thomas is an amazing journalist who still has enough enthusiasm and intelligence to keep up with all the stuff that happens in Washington every day. She’s apparently one of the most dangerous, too: On the seating chart for one of President Bush’s press conferences about Iran a couple of years ago, there was a big X right on her spot.