The front and center seat in the White House press room is up for grabs.
Journalist Helen Thomas has covered the White House since Eisenhower’s last years. She was the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association, and President Obama called her “an institution [1]” in Washington.
[2]
Thomas, who turns 90 next week, announced her retirement on June 7 after she made remarks [3] calling for Jews to “go home” and “get the hell out of Palestine.” She later apologized for her statements.
Thomas’s retirement opened the front and center seat in the press room, and Fox, NPR and Bloomberg News are all vying for the seat.
The White House Correspondents’ Association [4] is expected to decide on the matter on August 2 [5].
Representatives from the three networks wrote [6] to the Correspondents’ Association explaining why their stations should get the seat.
Fox News Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon wrote [7], "Now that Helen has retired, I'm hopeful the WHCA will make good on those assurances and approve Fox's long-expected move to that seat. All five TV networks — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FNC — now support this move. Even Helen herself is on record saying the seat should go to Fox."
David Sweeney, NPR [8]’s managing editor, emphasized the station’s vast audience and dedicated journalism.
“Since the 1970s, NPR has had a full-time White House correspondent… Over the past decade, NPR has traveled with the president on every foreign trip and the great preponderance of domestic trips. Even in these difficult economic times, as many other news organizations are forced to cut back, NPR routinely represents the radio pool on trips other news organizations cannot take.”
Bloomberg News’ executive editor Albert Hunt wrote that the decision should not be made based on “seniority, ideology, or tradition [9]” but on merit. He sited Bloomberg News as “the fastest growing news organization in the world” and emphasized the diversity of issues the network has covered. In Hunt’s letter, he directly countered Fox’s claims [10] to the seat.
“Among the earlier supporters they claim is Helen Thomas. Yet only a week ago a top Fox News anchorman, in a broadcast interview, declared it would be “poetic justice” to give Helen’s seat to Fox as she was left-leaning, and presumably Fox the opposite.”
Many liberals oppose the seat going to Fox, accusing the network of intense bias and racism. The seat, they feel, would legitimize the station.
Liberal activist group CREDO Action [11] is calling on members to encourage the White House Correspondents’ Association to keep Fox out of the premiere seat.
In a mass email, CREDO wrote, “It's bad enough that we have to fight the constant smear campaigns and appeals to racial paranoia from FOX and the right-wing media. We can't let them have the best seat in the White House press briefing room and the legitimacy that it confers.”
The group said that it already has 230,000 signatures against Fox getting the seat.
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