Hemlock for Helen
Calling it "a sign of Washington’s changing pecking order, and of the new ways that Americans get their news," Mike Allen of the Politico Helen Thomas Moving Back After 46 Years Down Front, reported:
The press corps is scheduled to move from temporary facilities back into the spiffed-up, rewired briefing room in May or June. Thomas, who has been questioning presidents and press secretaries for 46 years, plans to be there. But her front-row seat won’t be. Plans call for her to be moved to the second row to make room for a cable news channel. . . .As I noted in Move to the Back of the Bus, the rumors of her banishment were first raised last week, even earning a mention on the Colbert Report.
So the new media has a new way of reporting the news? Does that refer to the sycophantic stenography that the media has been giving us in lieu of real reporting? Or is it the all entertainment, all the time "news" format that parades as news? Whatever it is, it's not journalism.
Likewise calling it Helen Thomas Goes to the Back of the Bus, Night Bird's Fountain reacted to the phrase in a different way:
Well, I can't help but think that it's more than the "new ways that Americans get their news" that relegated Helen to the back of the pack. I think it has more to do with her biting criticism of this administration and their inability to answer truthfully. In any case, it is a shabby way to treat a remarkable hero of American Journalism. And, yes, after 46 years, I consider the second row the back of the bus.Thomas, ever the professional, shrugged it off, as Allen's piece continued:
“I didn’t think I had a monopoly on that seat,” Thomas, 86, said in a telephone interview. “Since my peers have decided that I don’t belong there, I’ll bow to their – I’ll drink the – What did Socrates drink?”
Hemlock?
“I’ll drink it,” she said. “You have to submit to the will of the people, and apparently this is the will of my peers. It’s OK with me. I’ve had a good run in the front seat.”* * * *She is deeply disillusioned by the state of press-presidential relations. “I think we have a public trust, and I think we have fallen down on the job,” she said. “The newest crop of journalists don’t do their job. For one thing, they’re being blocked. I think they came out of their coma on Katrina. But the questions that should have been asked have not been asked and time has passed us by.”
I pointed out that there is a school of thought that questions are worth asking even if the president won’t answer them. “At least the public’ll know you’re doing your job,” she said. “Questions should be out there, because the American people have seen us become so compliant and complicit. You were there for the run-up to the war. Where were the questions? Who asked why, what, what do you mean? We drop bombs and we accuse the enemy of meddling? We attack a country that did nothing on us? We dropped bombs on innocent people and started this war. You were there. Nobody said why.” When she paused and I filled the silence with “fascinating,” she continued: “It isn’t fascinating. It’s rid– it’s, it’s sad.”
Sad, but true.
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