SPJ retires Helen Thomas award after controversy
SPJ Adviser Charles Davis disagrees with the group's decision to retire the award.
Published Jan. 21, 2011
The Society of Professional Journalists board of directors voted to retire its “Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement” award on Jan. 14, according to a news release. The retirement of the award, which comes after anti-Semitic remarks from Thomas attracted media attention, will not affect past recipients.
“SPJ fully understands the concerns expressed by both sides regarding whether renaming or retiring the award is necessary or improper,” the news release stated.
According the release, SPJ’s board of directors and executive committee took into account opinions of SPJ members and from people outside of the organization.
“I am disheartened by that decision. I can respect the decision and I know a lot of the people who were involved in making the decision,” said Charles Davis, adviser of MU’s SPJ student chapter and professor at the School of Journalism.
Davis said Thomas was one of the first female journalists around and was a United Press International White House correspondent. Thomas is now 91 years old.
A Jan. 8 news release from SPJ states “The executive committee meeting, held in Nashville, Tenn., marked the second time in nearly six months the committee has considered removing Thomas’ name, stemming from an incident earlier in 2010 when the longtime White House reporter and columnist commented to a rabbi on video that Jews in Palestine should ‘go home.’”
According to the news release, this past December Thomas said, “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question,” at a speech in Dearborn, Mich.
SPJ said the controversy surrounding the award has overshadowed the reason it exists in the news release.
“To continue offering the award would reignite the controversy each year and take away from its purpose: honoring a lifetime of work in journalism," the release stated. "No individual worthy of such honor should have to face this controversy. No honoree should have to decide if the possible backlash is worth being recognized for his or her contribution to journalism.”
Davis said he disagrees with SPJ’s claim.
“I just don’t know how much responsibility a 91-year-old woman must bear for public comments she makes,” Davis said. “Everybody has freedom of speech. I just feel the punishment far exceeds the crime.”
The award was first awarded to Thomas herself, in the year 2000, and has since been awarded to ten other journalists, including Tom Brokaw of NBC News.
“As I said last week after the executive committee meeting, it’s time we in SPJ stop focusing on this divisive topic and start focusing on what unites us,” SPJ President Hagit Limor said in a news release. “There’s tremendously important work for us, like training our members for our ever-changing industry and fighting to ensure journalists and citizens have access to public records.”
Davis said people used to embrace journalists’ personalities similar to Thomas’ and thought “retiring” the award was a cowardly act of SPJ and called it kind of a backdoor way to strip her name off of it.
Comments (2)
10:03 p.m., Jan. 23, 2011
Shoshana Fischer said:
As a J-school alum and SPJ member I believe the SPJ did the right thing. Thomas' words tarnished this award, and every other award with her name on it. There was no conflict of interest for Limor. Standing up against Anti-Semitism does not mean someone should step down from voting - regardless of his or her background. Maybe there is a nice little hate group somewhere that will name an award for her instead, Mr. Weston.
8:40 a.m., Jan. 21, 2011
Lloyd H Weston said:
Ms. Prang; Mr. Davis: By way of follow-up, I posted this letter to Hagit Limor yesterday afternoon. lhw January 20, 2011 Ms. Hagit Limor President Society of Professional Journalists Dear Ms. Limor... I have to admit, I am truly ashamed of myself... embarrassed by my own stupidity. It was so easy to find when I looked it up today. You are a Sabra... a native-born Israeli. You danced in the streets of Tel Aviv after the Six-Day War. Your father is a Holocaust survivor. Why did you not recuse yourself from voting on the Helen Thomas Award matter??? Why did you bring it before your executive committee and board of directors at all??? Why did you not simply admit, from the beginning, that you may have a conflict of interest??? You could have, at the very least, passed the issue along to the floor of the next SPJ national convention. You did none of those things. And, apparently, you did a pretty good job of keeping your own, personal interest in the matter a great secret. (How many of your own board members just learned about your conflict today, as I did, from a posting on Facebook?) Your board's horrific decision to retire the society's Lifetime Achievement Award was certainly an unexpected blow to me -- and, I believe, to a large majority of SPJ members. But the dirt left on your hands by this latest "news" has rubbed-off on all of us... has made SPJ a national embarrassment. Only you -- very soon and very publicly -- can do something to ease our pain. I can only blame myself for my not having done enough research on this matter before I took a stand. My stand has not changed, nor will it. What you are going to do about this is far more important. I suggest that your resigning immediately from the presidency of the Society of Professional Journalists would be a very good start. And, as a senior member of SPJ, I hereby ask for that resignation immedately. LLOYD H WESTON 1-866-266-2002 Please see my Helen Thomas Letters at: http://thehelenthomasletters.blogspot.com/