wfn.org | Veteran newswoman champions personal freedom

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 16, 2003	News media contact: Kathy Gilbert7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.	10-71B{232}

By Tom Slack*

DAYTON, Ohio (UMNS) - Don't give up personal freedoms for a temporary sense
of security, Helen Thomas told a symposium at Dayton's First United Methodist
Church April 12. 

The diminutive but feisty newswoman, famed for probing questions from the
front row of the White House newsroom during nine presidential
administrations, spoke as the congregation's New City Church Project publicly
launched its "SpiritQuest" outreach program for young people in Dayton.

"We in the press are often accused of pre-empting the Bill of Rights, making
it our private preserve," she said. "We are its strongest defenders, make no
mistake about that. Whenever there is a question of freedom of the press,
we're there, we fight, we battle, but we know it isn't just about freedom of
the press. The Bill of Rights is absolutely essential to democracy." The
document, part of the Constitution, guarantees freedom of assembly, speech
and worship.

Thomas went to Washington in 1943 as a copy girl for the Washington Daily
News and worked her way up through the ranks of reporters at United Press
International until she was permanently assigned to the White House in 1961.
Now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, she was UPI's White House bureau chief
from 1974 to 2000.

Every presidential candidate promises an open administration, Thomas said,
"but after they get elected, they try to make government information their
private preserve."

"Secrecy in government is endemic," she added, "and it has become even more
so now. Our leaders have become less accountable and more powerful, with a
pliant Congress that defaults on its role."

One of those defaults has occurred with Congress' constitutional prerogative
to declare war, she said.

"The White House is not a place where battles are being fought," she
continued. "We have a one-minded administration - no devil's advocate, no
dissenters allowed."

That wasn't the atmosphere in all the administrations she covered, Thomas
said. Her favorite presidents were the peacemakers, although she said a
president should not want peace at any price.

Thomas agrees that terrorism must be confronted, but she doesn't recommend a
war on terror. Instead, she said, the nation and its leaders should search
for the root causes of hatred of the United States and face whatever truths
are found. Finding out what went wrong may help restore the nation's "halo"
and let it regain its "wonderful reputation as a beacon light of freedom, a
country to be loved and emulated for its goodness," she said.

Congress and the press must be willing to be called "unpatriotic" unfairly,
or basic rights to privacy will disappear as fear leads to wiretapping and
computers compiling details of everyone's lives, she said. Citizens, as well
as members of the press, should question whether intrusive information
gathering really makes for a more secure nation, since the freedoms won't
suddenly and automatically come back when the crisis is over.

"We in the press are in a profession that highly values skepticism, and
especially when it comes to leaders - with great justification, I might add,"
she said. "We're not supposed to be cheerleaders, which we have become. We
follow our Holy Grail, which is truth, wherever it leads us. We are the
self-appointed, self-anointed watchdogs of democracy."

Thomas appeared at a symposium and a fund-raising dinner to promote
"SpiritQuest," the New City Church project's outreach program to youth ages 8
to 18. Based on the self-protection system of To Shin Do, the program
addresses at-risk youth, teaching perseverance and positive mental imaging.

The First United Methodist Church of Dayton created New City Church, led by
Brice Thomas. Details are available at www.newcitychurch.com.

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*Slack is director of communication for the West Ohio Annual Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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