Politics
A White House reporter’s reflections on Helen Thomas
Pioneering work helped open doors for many others in press corps
Helen Thomas as a member of the White House Press Corps — past and more recent. (Photo of Helen Thomas with President Gerald Ford by Marion S. Trikosk; Photo of Helen Thomas with President Barack Obama by Pete Souza).
The news of Helen Thomas’s death on Saturday morning jolted me. It wasn’t surprising in one sense, because she was 92 years old, but it made me pause to reflect on my own presence in the White House press corps and how she opened the door for so many reporters, including me.
I first saw Helen Thomas in the White House briefing room when I started attending daily briefings at the start of the Obama administration, working the beat for federal LGBT politics. Blade reporters had been kicked out of the briefing room during George W. Bush’s second term, so it was a new era and an exciting time.
I remember thinking Thomas could move around the press area deftly for a woman in her late 80s and could hold her own in conversations with other reporters. During a news conference with President Obama in the East Room, she had to have someone escort her by hand over the wires and between the chairs, but otherwise she seemed full of energy.
Bestowed with a front row seat in the briefing room by her colleagues, Thomas would pester then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs with questions that would probably veer a little too close toward editorializing than other reporters in the briefing room would be comfortable asking.
One such instance occurred in October 2009 when Thomas asked Gibbs if the administration had given up on including a government-run public option as part of health care reform. Gibbs replied, somewhat light-heartedly to the octogenarian reporter, that he had answered the question several times before.
“I apparently don’t answer it to your satisfaction,” Gibbs said. “I’ll give you the same answer that I gave you unsatisfactorily for many of those other days.”
When Gibbs said the administration would work to include choice and competition in health care reform, Thomas vocally surmised, “You’re not going to get it.” And when Gibbs responded with his own question about why Thomas kept asking, she responded, in an almost grandmotherly way, “Because I want your conscience to bother you.”
But Thomas was holding the White House accountable long before the Obama administration. Getting her start in the Kennedy administration, Thomas broke up the boys’ club that was the White House Press Corps and was the first female reporter to cover the president, rather than the first lady.
In 1962, she pressed Kennedy to skip the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association unless it were open to women. After he said he wouldn’t attend, the dinner for the first time admitted women.
One of my major regrets is that I never initiated a conversation with Thomas during the times I saw her in the White House briefing room or the press area. Our time that coincided covering the White House in 2009 was very short. Also, I was little intimidated as I was still getting my bearings. Lesson to all: If you see someone you admire, take the opportunity to speak to them before it’s too late.
It’s unfortunate that her White House career came to a somewhat ignominious end.
In 2010, when Thomas was questioned on Jewish Heritage Celebration Day by a reporter about her thoughts on Israel, she replied, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” Asked where Israeli Jews should go, Thomas offered that Poland, Germany or the United States would be good options instead of Israel, adding “Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?” As a controversy unfolded and supporters of Israel grew angry, Thomas submitted her resignation to Hearst Newspapers.
I remember Gibbs responded to the controversy in a much more grave tone than the manner in which he addressed her questions about the public option. He took the liberty of not just speaking for the White House, but for the press corps.
“Those remarks were offensive and reprehensible,” Gibbs said. “I think she should, and has, apologized because, obviously those remarks do not reflect certainly the opinion of, I assume, most of the people in here .. and certainly not the administration.”
Still, the way in which Thomas’s role as a White House reporter ended was a small part of her half-century career. As President Obama noted in his statement upon her death, Thomas was a “true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers” for women in journalism.
And her courage opened for the door for me as well. The way Thomas broke down barriers and made sure women had a place in the White House press corps — as well as the continued tenaciousness of her questioning over the decades — made it easier for me to work as an openly gay reporter in the White House briefing room representing an LGBT publication.
I would never compare my work to Thomas’s, but the way she shook things up started a process that allowed me decades later to come to the briefings and — regardless of the news of the day occupying mainstream reporters — ask questions about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, the president’s evolution on marriage equality, and why the administration continues to withhold an executive order protecting LGBT workers.
Thanks to Thomas, if White House officials aren’t doing enough to advance LGBT rights, we can make sure their consciences will bother them.
Politics
After Biden signs TikTok ban its CEO vows federal court battle
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” CEO said
President Joe Biden signed an appropriations bill into law on Wednesday that provides multi-billion dollar funding and military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after months of delay and Congressional infighting.
A separate bill Biden signed within the aid package contained a bipartisan provision that will ban the popular social media app TikTok from the United States if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell off the American subsidiary.
Reacting, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said Wednesday that the Culver City, Calif.-based company would go to court to try to remain online in the U.S.
In a video posted on the company’s social media accounts, Chew denounced the potential ban: “Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban of TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,” Chew said. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere. We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail,” he added.
Our response to the TikTok Ban Bill in the US: https://t.co/LpoE67sxHo
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) April 24, 2024
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre adamantly denied during a press briefing on Wednesday that the bill constitutes a ban, reiterating the administration’s hope that TikTok will be purchased by a third-party buyer and referencing media reports about the many firms that are interested.
Chew has repeatedly testified in both the House and Senate regarding ByteDance’s ability to mine personal data of its 170 million plus American subscribers, maintaining that user data is secure and not shared with either ByteDance nor agencies of the Chinese government. The testimony failed to assuage lawmakers’ doubts.
In an email, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who doesn’t support a blanket ban of the app, told the Washington Blade:
“As the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, I have long worked to safeguard Americans’ freedoms and security both at home and abroad. The Chinese Communist Party’s ability to exploit private user data and to manipulate public opinion through TikTok present serious national security concerns. For that reason, I believe that divestiture presents the best option to preserve access to the platform, while ameliorating these risks. I do not support a ban on TikTok while there are other less restrictive means available, and this legislation will give the administration the leverage and authority to require divestiture.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told the Blade: “Senator Padilla believes we can support speech and creativity while also protecting data privacy and security. TikTok’s relationship to the Chinese Communist Party poses significant data privacy concerns. He will continue working with the Biden-Harris administration and his colleagues in Congress to safeguard Americans’ data privacy and foster continued innovation.”
The law, which gives ByteDance 270 days to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets, expires with a January 19, 2025 deadline for a sale. The date is one day before Biden’s term is set to expire, although he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress or the transaction faces uncertainty in a federal court.
Former President Donald Trump’s executive order in 2020, which sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, a unit of Beijing-based Tencent, in the U.S., was blocked by federal courts.
TikTok has previously fought efforts to ban its widely popular app by the state of Montana last year, in a case that saw a federal judge in Helena block that state ban, citing free-speech grounds.
The South China Morning Post reported this week that the four-year battle over TikTok is a significant front in a war over the internet and technology between Washington and Beijing. Last week, Apple said China had ordered it to remove Meta Platforms’s WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.
A spokesperson for the ACLU told the Blade in a statement that “banning or requiring divestiture of TikTok would set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms.”
LGBTQ TikToker users are alarmed, fearing that a ban will represent the disruption of networks of support and activism. However, queer social media influencers who operate on multiple platforms expressed some doubts as to long term impact.
Los Angeles Blade contributor Chris Stanley told the Blade:
“It might affect us slightly, because TikTok is so easy to go viral on. Which obviously means more brand deals, etc. However they also suppress and shadow ban LGBTQ creators frequently. But we will definitely be focusing our energy more on other platforms with this uncertainty going forward. Lucky for us, we aren’t one trick ponies and have multiple other platforms built.”
Brooklyn, N.Y.,-based gay social media creator and influencer Artem Bezrukavenko told the Blade:
“For smart creators it won’t because they have multiple platforms. For people who put all their livelihood yes. Like people who do livestreams,” he said adding: “Personally I’m happy it gets banned or American company will own it so they will be less homophobic to us.”
TikTok’s LGBTQ following has generally positive experiences although there have been widely reported instances of users, notably transgender users, seemingly targeted by the platform’s algorithms and having their accounts banned or repeatedly suspended.
Of greater concern is the staggering rise in anti-LGBTQ violence and threats on the platform prompting LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, in its annual Social Media Safety Index, to give TikTok a failing score on LGBTQ safety.
Additional reporting by Christopher Kane
Politics
Smithsonian staff concerned about future of LGBTQ programming amid GOP scrutiny
Secretary Lonnie Bunch says ‘LGBTQ+ content is welcome’
Staff at the Smithsonian Institution are concerned about the future of LGBTQ programming as several events featuring a drag performer were cancelled or postponed following scrutiny by House Republicans, according to emails reviewed by the Washington Post.
In December, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III appeared before a hearing led by GOP members of the Committee on House Administration, who flagged concerns about the Smithsonian’s involvement in “the Left’s indoctrination of our children.”
Under questioning from U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), Bunch said he was “surprised” to learn the Smithsonian had hosted six drag events over the past three years, telling the lawmakers “It’s not appropriate to expose children” to these performances.
Collaborations with drag artist Pattie Gonia in December, January, and March were subsequently postponed or cancelled, the Post reported on Saturday, adding that a Smithsonian spokesperson blamed “budgetary constraints and other resource issues” and the museums are still developing programming for Pride month in June.
“I, along with all senior leaders, take seriously the concerns expressed by staff and will continue to do so,” Bunch said in a statement to the paper. “As we have reiterated, LGBTQ+ content is welcome at the Smithsonian.”
The secretary sent an email on Friday expressing plans to meet with leaders of the Smithsonian Pride Alliance, one of the two groups that detailed their concerns to him following December’s hearing.
Bunch told the Pride Alliance in January that with his response to Bice’s question, his intention was to “immediately stress that the Smithsonian does not expose children to inappropriate content.”
“A hearing setting does not give you ample time to expand,” he said, adding that with more time he would have spoken “more broadly about the merits and goals of our programming and content development and how we equip parents to make choices about what content their children experience.”
Politics
Survey finds support for Biden among LGBTQ adults persists despite misgivings
Data for Progress previewed the results exclusively with the Blade
A new survey by Data for Progress found LGBTQ adults overwhelmingly favor President Joe Biden and Democrats over his 2024 rival former President Donald Trump and Republicans, but responses to other questions may signal potential headwinds for Biden’s reelection campaign.
The organization shared the findings of its poll, which included 873 respondents from across the country including an oversample of transgender adults, exclusively with the Washington Blade on Thursday.
Despite the clear margin of support for the president, with only 22 percent of respondents reporting that they have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Trump, answers were more mixed when it came to assessments of Biden’s performance over the past four years and his party’s record of protecting queer and trans Americans.
Forty-five percent of respondents said the Biden-Harris administration has performed better than they expected, while 47 percent said the administration’s record has been worse than they anticipated. A greater margin of trans adults in the survey — 52 vs. 37 percent — said their expectations were not met.
Seventy precent of all LGBTQ respondents and 81 percent of those who identify as trans said the Democratic Party should be doing more for queer and trans folks, while just 24 percent of all survey participants and 17 percent of trans participants agreed the party is already doing enough.
With respect to the issues respondents care about the most when deciding between the candidates on their ballots, LGBTQ issues were second only to the economy, eclipsing other considerations like abortion and threats to democracy.
These answers may reflect heightened fear and anxiety among LGBTQ adults as a consequence of the dramatic uptick over the past few years in rhetorical, legislative, and violent bias-motivated attacks against the community, especially targeting queer and trans folks.
The survey found that while LGBTQ adults are highly motivated to vote in November, there are signs of ennui. For example, enthusiasm was substantially lower among those aged 18 to 24 and 25 to 39 compared with adults 40 and older. And a plurality of younger LGBTQ respondents said they believe that neither of the country’s two major political parties care about them.
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