Of course not. I certainly haven’t. I’m willing to put a good sum on the wager that no one I know has ever read one of her opinion columns. And I’d even bet that no more than two commenters will appear on this blog to claim they have read more than one column since she ceased being a UPI reporter in 2000 and started writing this Hearst column that you’ve never seen. (Yes, I’m hedging my bets. Anonymous commenters are liable to claim anything.)
Maybe this isn’t surprising: she’s famous for her longevity and cantankerousness more than any story she covered during her very, very long career in Washington. But in another way, it is surprising: after all, she is perhaps the most famous and most permanent White House correspondent. I don’t mean to pick on an old lady, but I think that her admirers and detractors can both agree that she makes news for what she says, not what she writes.
So, where would you even go to find her column? Good question!
The Hearst Corporation may have fallen in stature somewhat since Xanadu… er, I mean Hearst Castle played host to debaucherous parties involving nubile young starlets in the early days of Hollywood, but the company remains one of the biggest newspaper (and other media) holding companies in the United States (for whatever that’s worth).
In order to find Thomas’ column, I thought I’d visit some Hearst-owned newspaper websites. What I found wasn’t encouraging. On some of the smaller newspapers’ sites, the opinion/commentary sections may as well be abandoned. But at its three largest papers — the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News — there was no Thomas to be found. At smaller, still important newspapers such as the Albany Times-Union, there are numerous local columnists as well as nationally syndicated columnists such as Ellen Goodman and Kathleen Parker. But no Thomas.
To find Helen Thomas’ allegedly-syndicated column — which may well run in the print edition of some of these papers — you have to consult the Oracle of Mountain View. The top result is for TheBostonChannel.com, the website of WCBV-TV — a television station owned by subsidiary Hearst-Argyle. And if you go digging further, you can find her column at websites such as WBAL-TV in Baltimore and KCRA-TV in Sacramento.
So, if you care to read them, there they are. But as I said, I don’t mean to pick on an old lady. I think I’ll leave that to Jon Chait*.
P.S. With apologies to the Ford Motor Company.
* Or I would, except it seems the article has been removed from the web, and is not available on any public website that I can find. Hmm. If Blog P.I. disappears from the web, now you’ll know why.
Helen Thomas photograph via Baratunde on Flickr.
Great post, Bill. You just answered one of my longest held Beltway insider questions. And to answer yours — no: I have never read a Helen Thomas column and would not, but for your research, have had the slightest idea where to look. Now, here’s a further query: Given her evident lack of circulation, who do you think has more readers — Mrs. Thomas or the bloggers she likes to rail against?
You know I met her a couple years back at a cocktail party. When she found out that I had once been a speechwriter for the Bush Administration she refused to talk to me any further. That’s the kind of high-minded journalism she retails. Don’t even bother talking to people you disagree with.
Most of the left-leaning bloggers I know have more curious minds and a greater interest in understanding the other side (if only to rip it apart more expertly). Her closed mind is what has made her irrelevant.
That’s not quite accurate. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishes her column from time to time; they might well be the only somewhat-major newspaper to do so. Here’s a recent example of her prose stylings.
The great irony is that despite her advanced years and experience, the biases and attitudes that make her unreadable and untrustworthy are quite juvenile. Helen Thomas is proof that age doesn’t automatically mean wisdom.