The Last Temptation of Helen Thomas
June 7, 2010 Category :media| newspapers 0
Helen Thomas was writing for UPI when newspapers still used linotypes and when teletypes delivered her stories nationwide at speeds we would no longer accept for devices we carry in our pockets. It was this explosion of connectivity that ultimately ended her career: an intemperate remark made into a pocket video camera, amplified by the international reach of the worldwide web.
Helen Thomas
She was a veteran of the gatekeeper days of media; when JFK could philander in the White House and the press corps would give him a free pass. People could say intemperate things as asides and expect to do so with impunity; the gatekeepers would keep the snarky one-liners on background. As media became more prolific, and connectivity became ubiquitous, everyone suddenly became a press photographer merely by owning a phone with a camera; everyone with a camcorder and a website is their own TV news operation.
I had a vested interest in seeing Helen Thomas in the emeritus seat at press conferences. I think all of us who are refugees from dying or dead media took comfort in her longevity and perseverance; she provided at least a tenuous link with our shared journalistic past.
Just as she has outlived most of the ink-stained wretches from newspaper’s late golden age, she outlived the old media she once wrote for. She resigned from UPI when it became the mouthpiece of Sun Myung Moon; finally ending her career as a columnist for Hearst, which today sees its newspapers as only a small part of a diversified media company buying its way into the digital age.
It is symbolic that Helen Thomas ended her career in a way being mirrored by the institutions she spent her life working for; she didn’t see the subtle changes in the way information permeates society until it was too late to change. Public figures are always tempted to say intemperate things and in another day, the gatekeepers would laugh then suppress the direct quote. Now that we’re all journalists, that’s a courtesy that died with the linotype and the slow news ticker.