Helen Thomas: Weapon of Mass Distraction

Cast alongside a preening, camera-ready White House press corps, Helen Thomas was different. But she certainly wasn't "tough."

My latest column for The Week remembers Helen Thomas’ outbursts in the White House briefing room and points out the trouble with journalism that seems more concerned with confrontation and spectacle than obtaining information.

Helen Thomas will no longer be sitting in the front row of the White House press briefing room. The abrupt end to her career has triggered many tributes to Thomas’ supposedly tough questioning.

But it was not tough. A tough question is a question that’s hard to answer. But any moderately-skilled flack understood precisely how to deflect Helen Thomas’ histrionic denunciations:

Q: “When will you stop killing people?”

A: “Helen, the president regrets every lost life, but he will never apologize for the sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform as they keep America safe.”

In fact, calling on Helen Thomas was a notorious method for a hard-pressed White House press secretary to EVADE tough questions from the rest of the press corps. A zany, out-of-left-field protest from Thomas would disrupt a flow of unwelcome queries, maybe spark a tension-breaking laugh, maybe change the subject altogether.

The test of a tough question is not: does it pack a lot of anger into words ending with an interrogation point?

The test of a tough question is: does it elicit a revealing answer? The answer is the point, not the question. It was Katie Couric’s uncombative inquiries – not Charlie Gibson’s pedagogic condescension – that revealed the real Sarah Palin.

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