Tenacious US journalist and veteran White House correspondent who was not afraid to express her own strongly held views
At a time when US news media confined most female journalists to writing about cookery, fashion and "women's interests", Helen Thomas was one of the doughtiest warriors to storm the absurd barricade. Thomas, who has died aged 92, became a national icon as the senior correspondent at the White House for United Press International (UPI), with the privilege of saying to US leaders from John F Kennedy onwards, "Thank you, Mr President", signalling that the press (and the television audience) had heard quite enough.
She was born in Winchester, Kentucky, the seventh child of Lebanese immigrants: George, a grocer, and his wife, Mary. Her journalistic ambition was sparked on a student newspaper after the family moved to Detroit. On graduating from Wayne University (now Wayne State University), in Detroit, she headed for Washington DC and briefly worked on the Washington Daily News, initially as a general dogsbody and later as a trainee reporter. In 1943 she was taken on by United Press (which later became UPI), one of America's principal news agencies, which supplied its staff's material to a wide range of media outlets.
For 12 years Thomas was required to be at her desk by 5.30am to write scripts about women's interests for the commercial radio stations that took the UPI service. Always an abrasive personality, she repeatedly made it plain that her talents could be put to better use. She was eventually promoted to dealing with news coming from Washington's multiple bureaucracies, including the justice department, the FBI and the department of education. There she did so well that the news desk assigned her to Congress, where she made many useful contacts among the senators and congressmen.
In the 1960 presidential campaign, she was deputed to cover Kennedy's bid for the White House. The assignment was not intended to enhance Thomas's career. Kennedy was regarded as the rank outsider, not only in running against the sitting vice-president, Richard Nixon, but in his ambition to be the first Catholic president. The Nixon campaign coverage was awarded to a more senior man.
Kennedy's narrow victory brought Thomas fame and fortune. She was first sent to Florida to report on the president-elect's family holiday and spent hours following the new first lady – an ever-fascinating figure to the US public – interviewing dozens of people with whom Jackie Kennedy had had the slightest contact and stitching together a series of pieces that her agency could market not only in the US but also around the world.
After that coup she was naturally sent to cover the White House, and got on well with the new president, in spite of her sometimes relentless questioning of administration policies. That eventually produced the chagrined comment from Kennedy that Thomas would be "a nice girl if she'd ever get rid of that pad and pencil".
In 1970 UPI appointed her its chief White House correspondent and, four years later, the head of its White House bureau, the first woman to reach this professional height. Parallel honours came from her fellow journalists, when they elected her the first female member of the capital's most exclusive press club, the Gridiron Club; the first female president of the White House Correspondents' Association; and the first female official of the National Press Club.
She regularly travelled on presidential excursions abroad and was one of only three female reporters allowed by the Chinese to cover President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to Beijing in 1972. It was her impeccable professional performance that marked her out for such recognition and her gender barely came into the equation. She was vigorously applauded by her peers in 2000 when control of UPI passed to an organisation associated with the Unification church founded by the Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon. Thomas, after 57 years with the organisation, resigned on the spot, saying: "I do not intend to stay. United Press International is a great news agency. It has made a remarkable mark in the annals of American journalism and has left a superb legacy for future journalists. I wish the new owners all the best, great stories and happy landings."
She was swiftly invited to become a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, which brought a slow but significant decline in her performance. At the time she joked: "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself: 'Who do I hate today?'" But she became more and more tendentious in her White House questioning (from a seat in the front row, the only one in the room to bear the occupant's name). Her Lebanese ancestry coloured her opinions on Middle East policy, and these views eventually brought her down in 2010, when she responded to a rabbi's question about events in Israel with the comment that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go home to "Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else". In the ensuing furore she expressed regret and resigned, bringing to an end 67 years in the top ranks of her calling.
Thomas's books include Date Line: White House (1975) and Thanks for the Memories, Mr President: Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at the White House (2002).
In 1971 she married a fellow White House correspondent, Douglas Cornell. He died in 1982. She is survived by three sisters.
• Helen Amelia Thomas, journalist, born 4 August 1920; died 20 July 2013